The Centre and the National Testing Agency on June 13 told the top court that they had cancelled the grace marks given to 1,563 candidates.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday sought responses from the Centre, the National Testing Agency (NTA) and others on petitions seeking the cancelation of NEET-UG 2024, and a court-monitored probe into the alleged irregularities in the medical entrance exam. A vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and SVN Bhatti also sought responses from the parties on separate pleas filed by the NTA seeking the transfer of some pending petitions from the high courts to the apex court.
The Supreme Court has announced that pleas filed by the NTA and other petitioners will be heard on July 8. One of the petitions, filed by 20 students who appeared in the medical entrance exam, also sought a direction to the NTA and others to conduct the test afresh. While hearing separate pleas concerning the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate)-2024 examination, the apex court had on June 18 said even if there was “0.001 per cent negligence” on the part of anyone in the conduct of the examination, it should be thoroughly dealt with, news agency PTI reported.
Earlier today, the apex court issued a notice on a petition filed by the NTA seeking the transfer of pleas relating to NEET-UG from the High Court to the apex court. The Court stays the proceedings before the High Court in the cases. The Supreme Court reiterated that it will not stop the counselling process. Additionally, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and NTA on a petition filed by some students who appeared in the Meghalaya centre for the NEET-UG exam and allegedly lost 45 minutes and prayed they should be a part of the 1563 students who got grace marks and were given the option to appear for re-exam on June 23.
The Centre and the National Testing Agency on June 13 told the top court that they had cancelled the grace marks given to 1,563 candidates, who took the examination for admission to MBBS and other such courses. The candidates will have the option to either take a retest or forgo the compensatory marks awarded to them for the loss of time, the Centre had said. The examination was held on May 5 across 4,750 centres and around 24 lakh candidates appeared for it. Its results were expected to be declared on June 14 but were announced on June 4, apparently because the evaluation of the answer sheets was completed earlier.
Several petitions were filed in the apex court seeking direction to recall NEET-UG 2024 results and to conduct the examination afresh, alleging paper leakage and malpractices in the test held on May 5. Aspirants have raised the issue of leakage of the question paper, awarding compensatory marks and anomalies in the question of NEET-UG 2024.
(This is a developing story. Further details will be updated soon)