In response to a petition demanding a new National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) undergraduate (UG) examination 2024 (NEET-UG 2024) due to suspected paper leaks and irregularities, the Supreme Court on Tuesday sent a notice to the National Testing Agency (NTA) for a response.
The plea filed by ten NEET aspirants was flagged by the top court’s vacation bench, which included Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah. “Sanctity has been affected, we need answers,” the bench declared.
Additionally, the court declined to halt the counselling procedure for successful applicants seeking admission to MBBS, BDS, and other programmes.
“We’re not going to quit counselling. The judge declared, “We will dismiss this if you argue further.”
A follow-up hearing for the topic has been scheduled for July 8.
The motion said that because the petitioners were aware of multiple instances of paper leaks, NEET-UG, 2024, was rife with malpractices. It claimed that the purported paper leak violated Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to equality, by giving certain candidates an unfair advantage over others who choose to take the test fairly.
Notably, the NTA administers the NEET-UG exam to grant admission to government and private universities across the nation for programmes in MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other relevant fields.
The results of the May 5 NEET-UG 2024 were released on June 4.
Meanwhile, the NTA’s decision to give some candidates grace marks in the NEET-UG 2024 exam has prompted additional applications to be filed in the Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, the CEO of Physics Wallah, Alakh Pandey, will present his petitions. About 20,000 students signed petitions for Pandey, and the results indicate that at least 1,500 pupils received 70–80 grace marks at random.
Advocate J Sai Deepak stated, “The court is clear that it will not stay the counselling process at this stage. The court has indicated that our matter will also be taken up with the other matters.”
Meanwhile, Pandey stated, “Because it was mentioned on June 1st before results, the students were demanding justification solely based on the paper leak, not regarding the grace marks or anything else. Tomorrow, our PIL will be listed. It has to do with the NTA’s transparency, the paper leak, grace marks, and everything else.