As the Opposition mounts pressure on the government over the NEET-UG and UGC-NET controversies and the issue of railway safety, Narendra Modi government seems to be in panic fearing that the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha begins on Monday could be tumultuous.
Keeping mum for the last two weeks over agitations all over the country on these issues started taking up hectic acts to save its face in the Parliament. On Saturday late night, it has ordered a CBI investigation into the allegations of malpractices and paper leak in the conduct of NEET-UG exam for the admission to medical courses.
The government’s move comes over a week after the controversy of alleged paper leak erupted, triggering protests by the students and political parties. This comes days after the CBI, on June 20, registered an FIR into the UGC-NET paper leak case against unidentified persons on a reference from the Union Education Ministry.
Few hours earlier to this decision, in a major action amid the paper leak row, the Centre sacked Subodh Kumar Singh as the director general of the exam body National Testing Agency (NTA) and replaced him with Pradeep Singh Kharola, IAS, on the post on Saturday.
The government’s latest action comes in a series of steps starting from notifying the ‘Anti-paper leak’ law on Friday, to constituting a 7-member expert panel aiming to ensure transparent, smooth and fair conduct of examinations.
The moves come as the row over the NEET-UG continued over a week. UGC-NET was cancelled, a day after its conduct as the question paper was leaked on darknet.
Meanwhile, the Union Ministry of Education has constituted a high-level committee of experts to ensure transparent, smooth and fair conduct of examinations.
The move comes as the row over paper leaks of various top exams, including NEET-UG and UGC NET, which was cancelled a day after its conduct, continues for over a week. Dr K Radhakrishnan, Former Chairman, ISRO and Chairman BoG, IIT Kanpur, will head the panel of 7 experts.
