On Tuesday, 11th June, the Supreme Court of India refused to stay the counselling for admission of students to the medical colleges after allegations of paper leak and irregularities in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) undergraduate (UG) examination 2024 surfaced. The vacation Bench comprising of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah issued a notice to the National Testing Agency (NTA) on one of the petitions seeking cancellation of the exams. Furthermore, the petitioner sought an investigation into the alleged paper leak.
SC: Issue notice. Let the matter be heard on July 8. Tag this with the plea coming up. Let reply be filed by NTA
— Bar and Bench (@barandbench) June 11, 2024
Nedumpara: let the counselling be stayed
SC: We will not stop the counselling, if you argue further we will dismiss this. #SupremeCourt #NEET_परीक्षा_परिणाम…
The court said, “We will not stop the counselling. If you argue further, we will dismiss this.” The remarks came during the hearing of a batch of petitions seeking cancellation of the NEET-UG 2024 exam that was held in May 2024, over an alleged paper leak and other regularities. Similar petitions are pending in different High Courts including Delhi High Court and Calcutta High Court.
One of the petitions filed at the apex court specifically mentioned the allegations that the paper was leaked in Patna. Furthermore, it was alleged that the wrong question papers were given to the students in Rajasthan. The results of the NEET exam were announced in June 2024. Media reports alleged that an extraordinarily large number of candidates who appeared for NEET got a perfect score raising questions over the authenticity of the examination.
The candidates alleged irregularities in the award of compensatory or grace marks to students for the loss of time as well. Earlier, a three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra had declined to stay the publication of the results of NEET-UG 2024.
NEET results marred with controversies
the NEET UG 2024 results have sparked widespread controversy and debate, with suspicions of inflated marks and other anomalies. Following the release of the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) results on 4th June, it was revealed that as many as 67 students received a perfect score of 720/720 marks to share the All-India Rank (AIR) 1. A large number of medical aspirants and their parents raised numerous concerns about glitches, alleged malpractices, ambiguous implementation of grace marks, above all an alleged paper leak. It is notable that 23,33,297 candidates from all over India appeared for the prestigious exam this year. OpIndia’s detailed report on what has happened with NEET exam can be checked here.
