Amid NEET-UG 2024 ROW, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday said isolated incidents of malpractices should not affect lakhs of students who cleared the examination rightfully.

Pradhan said the government will constitute a high-level panel to look into the functioning of the National Testing Agency (NTA).  He also appealed to the opposition parties not to politicize the issue and said strict action would be taken against those found guilty, including top officials from the NTA.

“Be it NTA or any top official or senior person in NTA, strict action will be taken against whoever is found guilty in the NEET case. No malpractices will be tolerated and the government is committed to holding zero-error exams,” he said while addressing a press conference.

The press conference came a day after the Ministry ordered the cancellation of UGC-NET after it received inputs indicating that the sanctity of the exam had been compromised.

“The cancellation of UGC-NET was not a knee-jerk reaction. We got proofs that the paper had leaked on darknet and was circulating on (messaging app) Telegram and decided to cancel the exam,” the Minister said.

“It is unfair to hold hostage the career of those candidates who have rightfully cleared the exam because of some isolated incidents of malpractice,” he said on the reports of NEET-UG paper leak in Bihar.

“We are in constant touch with the Bihar Police. We have sought a report from them. Once we have it, we will decide the future course of action. I take full responsibility and anomalies in the system will be rectified,” he further said.

“Let us have faith in our systems and no irregularities or malpractices will be tolerated by the government,” Pradhan added.

(with inputs from PTI)