NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought a response from the National Testing Agency on a plea claiming paper leakage and other malpractices in NEET-UG held on May 5 for admission to undergraduate courses in medical colleges across the country.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah issued notice to the NTA and others, observing that questions have been raised about sanctity of the examination.
Also Read - Plea filed in SC for fresh NEET
The court scheduled the petition filed by Shivangi Mishra and others for consideration in July.
The bench, however, declined for now to stay the counselling process.
The NEET 2024 examination was conducted on May 5, 2024, and the results were announced on June 4, 2024. The Directorate General of Health Science (DGHS), on behalf of the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), is likely to start UG Counselling 2024 tentatively in the first week of July, 2024.
The petitioners led by advocate Mathews J Nedumpara sought indulgence of the court as NTA has published its own circular/notification giving a clean chit to the alleged offenders in paper leak case before the ongoing investigations of various agency concerned was concluded in the back drop of FIR registered by Shastri Nagar Police Station here and investigation being further carried out by EOU Bihar Police on paper leakage.
They sought a direction to the NTA to recall the results of the examination conducted on May 5 and to conduct the examination afresh after issuing due public notice as a large number of examinees are bound to be affected by the declaration of results depriving those qualified examinees of just and fair opportunity to compete in seeking admission in college of their choice.
Also Read - Calcutta High Court Seeks Response from NTA on Alleged Irregularities in NEET (UG) 2024 [Read Order]
They also sought a direction to the NTA to take such effective and meaningful steps to ensure that
malpractices and fraud, in particular leaking of the question papers as has happened in the previous examination, does not happen any longer.
Several aspirants of the medical entrance exam NEET have alleged inflation of marks which led to a record 67 candidates bagging the top rank, including six from the same exam centre.
The National Testing Agency, however, denied any irregularities and said the changes made in the NCERT textbooks and grace marks for losing time at the examination centres are some of the reasons behind the students scoring higher marks.
Several petitions raising questions about the sanctity of the test have been filed in the top court and High Courts. A group of students also held demonstration here demanding re examination of the NEET UG.
