The Supreme Court on Monday is scheduled to hear a batch of petitions related to the alleged irregularities in the medical entrance examination NEET UG 2024, conducted earlier this year. This comes two days after the National Testing Agency (NTA) released a city-wise and centre-wise result of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) after accusations of marking irregularities and paper leaks.
As per the case listing for July 22 in the Supreme Court, a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra will hear the pleas on NEET UG irregularities.
A total of 40 petitions are scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court bench today, including the pleas filed by the NTA seeking transfer of cases pending against it in various high courts on the NEET-UG row to the apex court to avoid multiplicity of litigations.
The Supreme Court on July 11 adjourned the hearing of pleas regarding the medical entrance exam, including those seeking cancellation of the exam, re-test and probe into alleged malpractices in the conduct of NEET-UG 2024, as the responses of the Centre and the NTA were yet to be received by some parties.
The apex court noted that it received an progress report from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) regarding its probe in the NEET paper leak cases. While hearing the pleas on July 8, the Supreme Court had observed that the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 has been "breached".
{{/usCountry}}The apex court noted that it received an progress report from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) regarding its probe in the NEET paper leak cases. While hearing the pleas on July 8, the Supreme Court had observed that the sanctity of the NEET-UG 2024 has been "breached".
{{/usCountry}}However, the Centre in its affidavit to the Supreme Court said an analysis of the NEET UG 2024 result showed that apart from a number of wrongdoings at some centres, there was no indication of "mass malpractice" or any localised set of candidates scoring abnormally high marks.
An analysis of the result released by NTA on Saturday showed that the students who allegedly benefitted from the irregularities and paper leaks did not have a good performance. Centres at major coaching hub cities, however, had a higher concentration of top scoring students.
The NEET examination was conducted on May 5, and more than 23.33 lakh students took the test at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including in 14 cities overseas. The results of the exam were due on June 14, but were released ten days earlier on June 4 by NTA.
(With inputs from PTI)