On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) in response to a petition calling for the cancellation of this year’s National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET-UG 2024) for Undergraduate Medical courses due to an alleged paper leak.
A vacation bench, comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah, scheduled the matter for further hearing on July 8, requesting a response from the NTA.
“Sanctity has been affected, so we need answers,” Justice Amanullah stated to the NTA’s counsel. He inquired about the time needed for a response and warned that counseling would commence otherwise.
The NTA’s counsel suggested linking this petition with a prior one, which had already been addressed by a bench led by the Chief Justice of India on May 17 and scheduled for hearing on July 8. The bench agreed to merge the current petition with the earlier one.
Advocate Mathews J Nedumpara, representing the petitioners, requested a stay on the counseling process. However, the bench declined, with Justice Nath stating, “Let the counselling start, we are not stopping the counselling.”
“Issue notice. In the meantime, the response will be filed by the National Testing Agency,” the bench noted in its order.
The Supreme Court was addressing petitions that called for the cancellation of the NEET-UG 2024 examination due to alleged paper leaks and other irregularities this year.
In addition to the paper leak, NEET-UG candidates have reported inconsistencies in the awarding of compensatory marks for time lost during the exam.
Several petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking the invalidation of the NEET-UG 2024 results and the conduct of a fresh examination, citing allegations of paper leakage and misconduct during the May 5 test.
However, the NTA has denied any irregularities. The NEET-UG examination, conducted by the NTA, is the gateway for admissions into MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other related courses in both government and private institutions nationwide.
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