The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on July 8 a batch of pleas alleging paper leak and irregularities in the NEET-UG 2024 examination conducted on May 5.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court is set to hear multiple pleas concerning the controversy over the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 results on July 8. The Centre has filed an affidavit on a batch of petitions pending before the apex court seeking direction to recall NEET-UG 2024 results and conduct the examination afresh, alleging paper leakage and malpractices in the test held.
Soon after the NEET UG 2024 results were declared on June 4 — coinciding with the Lok Sabha election results — several candidates, coaching experts, parents, and guardians approached the top Court, alleging irregularities in the exams. At the same time, a section of students claimed that the medical entrance examination paper was leaked.
A few Writ Petitions were filed by the candidates of NEET (UG) 2024 before the High Court of Punjab & Haryana, Delhi, and Chhattisgarh, raising concerns of loss of exam time during the conduct of NEET (UG) 2024 on May 5, at few Exam Centres.
A Grievance Redressal Committee consisting of eminent experts from the field of examination and academia, was constituted to look into such grievances/representations and to submit its recommendation. The Committee considered the grievances/representations on the basis of factual reports of the functionaries and CCTV footages from concerned exam Centres. The loss of examination time was ascertained and such candidates were compensated with marks based on their answering efficiency and time lost, as per the mechanism/ formula established by the Apex Court, vide its judgment dated 13.06.2018 in W.P. 551 of 2018. 1563 candidates were compensated for the loss of time and the revised marks of such candidates vary from -20 to 720 marks.
Later, several students and other stakeholders approached the top Court, requesting the removal of grace marks awarded to 1,563 students due to lost exam time and other issues. These pleas are scheduled to be heard on Monday(July 8) by a bench that includes Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra.
NEET UG Result 2024: Supreme Court to hear the cases on July 8
Speaking of the NTA NEET Result 2024 irregularities, various concerns have been raised in these pleas: some allege a paper leak, others demand the complete cancellation and re-conduct of the entrance exam, and some call for an investigation into the operations of the National Testing Agency (NTA).
The counselling process for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 has been deferred till further notice, official sources were quoted as saying by news agency ANI. The development comes after the Supreme Court refused to delay the NEET UG counselling scheduled to start on July 6. Earlier in June, the Supreme Court declined to stay the process of counselling in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) 2024 and has issued a notice to the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the examination. The MCC NEET UG Counselling process was slated to commence from July 6.
Earlier on Friday, the Central government has told the Supreme Court that, in the absence of any proof of any large-scale breach of confidentiality in the NEET-UG 2024 examination, it would not be rational to scrap the entire examination. Scrapping the NEET-UG exam held on May 5 in its entirety would “seriously jeopardise” the lakhs of honest candidates who attempted the question paper in 2024, said the Ministry of Education.
“In the absence of any proof of any large-scale breach of confidentiality in a pan-India examination, it would not be rational to scrap the entire examination and the results already declared. It is submitted that in any examination, there are competing rights that have been created whereby the interests of a large number of students who have taken the examination without adopting any alleged unfair means must not also be jeopardised. Scrapping the exam in entirety would seriously jeopardise the lakhs of honest candidates who attempted the question paper in 2024,” stated the affidavit. The Center further submitted in its affidavit that the Union of India is committed to conduct of all competitive examinations in a “fair and transparent manner.”
On June 13, the Centre and the NTA told the apex court that they had cancelled the grace marks awarded to 1,563 candidates and candidates were given the option to either take a re-test on June 23 or forgo the compensatory marks awarded for loss of time. A total of 813 students appeared for the retest conducted on June 23 across seven centres.
The apex Court sought a response from the NTA on the petition that claimed “inconsistent” calculation of marks on the OMR sheets used for the NEET-UG 2024 exam. A vacation bench of Justices Manoj Misra and SVN Bhatti issued a notice and sought the NTA’s response by July 8, the date of the next hearing. The petition filed by the learning app Xylem Learning also brought up the issue of the time limit for raising the grievance regarding the OMR sheets.
“Let us know if there is a timeline to provide the OMR sheets. As of now, we will tag it. Let NTA seek instructions on this,” said the bench, ANI reported.
According to the cause list for July 8 uploaded on the top court’s website, the pleas are listed before a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. NEET-UG examination, conducted by NTA, is the pathway for admissions into MBBS, BDS and AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country.