Exam irregularities: Supreme Court reserves verdict on re-conduct of AIPMT

The Supreme Court on Friday reserved its verdict on petitions seeking re-conduct of All India Pre-Medical Test 2015 for alleged large-scale irregularities in the examination held on May 3. A vacation bench comprising justices R K Agarwal and Amitabha Roy said that it will shortly pronounce judgement and asked the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) not to declare the AIPMT results till then. During the hearing, the bench said, "The examination stands vitiated even if one student is being benefited illegally. "We are not holding CBSE guilty as such. Taking into consideration the past such incidents, CBSE ought to have been cognisant of these things. It had been happening for last two- three years," it said.

Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for CBSE, opposed the contentions seeking cancellation of the test, saying, "6.3 lakh students cannot be made to take the exam afresh when only 44 students have been found involved in taking benefits through unfair means." On June 8, the apex court had extended till today the stay on declaration of results of the test.

Earlier, the vacation bench had asked Haryana Police to file a fresh report indicating the number of beneficiaries of the alleged irregularities in the pre-medical examination. It had also asked the police to identify as many candidates as possible who had been benefited from the alleged leak. CBSE was to declare the results of AIPMT, taken by over six lakh students, on June 5.

"We are fully aware of all this. The bigger issue is that the sanctity of the examination is under suspicion. We want to be doubly sure that there is no alternative but to order re-conduct of the examination," the court had said, adding that it did want to take a decision "in haste".

"We have to be doubly sure. We do not want to be criticised for any action," the bench had said and asked the police to "hunt" for other beneficiaries. "We are expecting the probe to conclude," the bench had said, adding that this was "important" to decide the future course of action.