Amid opposition calls to re-conduct the medical entrance exam NEET, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Thursday that isolated instances of malpractice should not affect lakhs of students who passed the exam correctly. He announced the formation of a high-level panel to investigate the operations of the testing agency NTA. Addressing a press conference here, Pradhan also urged opposition parties not to politicise the issue and promised strict punishment for those found guilty, including National Testing Agency (NTA) officials.

The minister stated that a high-level committee to review and improve the functioning of the NTA would be appointed soon. Pradhan said that the UGC-NET exam for the selection of junior research fellows, assistant professors, and PhD scholars was cancelled because the exam paper was leaked on Darknet. “Let us have faith in our systems and no irregularities or malpractices will be tolerated by the government,” he claimed.

The NEET exam was held on May 5 in 4,750 centres, with approximately 24 lakh candidates taking part. The results were supposed to be announced on June 14, but they were announced on June 4, stating that the evaluation of the answer sheets had been completed earlier.

As many as 67 students scored a perfect 720, a record for the NTA, with six from a centre in Haryana’s Faridabad making the list, raising suspicions of irregularities. The NTA administers the NEET-UG exam in order to grant admission to government and private universities nationwide for MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other relevant programmes.