NEET UG 2024: 5 reasons why Supreme Court refused to cancel examination

NEET UG 2024 hearing: The Supreme Court said there was no material to indicate that the paper leak was systemic affecting the sanctity of the entire exam.

Supreme Court hearing on NEET: The Supreme Court on Tuesday, July 23, refused to cancel the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test(NEET)-UG 2024 exam while hearing a batch of petitions seeking re-examination of the medical entranced over alleged paper leak and malpractices. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra passed the order The medical admissions test was held on May 5, while the results were declared on June 4.

A protest being held over the alleged irregularities in NEET 2024 at Jantar Mantar. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

According to the Supreme Court, ordering a re-examination will lead to serious consequences affecting over 23 lakh students and will lead to disruption of the academic schedule, causing a cascading effect in the coming years, Live Law reported.

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Reason why Supreme Court refused NEET-UG 2024 re-exam

1. The Supreme Court said the fact that the leak of NEET UG paper 2024 is not in dispute.
2. Following the transfer of the investigation, the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI has filed its status reports. The disclosures by the CBI indicate that the investigation is continuing. However, it has indicated that the present material showed that about 155 students drawn from exam centres at Hazaribagh and Patna appeared to be beneficiaries of the scam.
3. At the present stage, there is absence of material on the record sufficient to the lead to the conclusion that the result of the examination stand vitiated or that there is a systemic breach in the sanctity of the exam.
4. The data produced on record is not indicative of the systemic leak of the question paper which would lead to the destruction of the sanctity of the exam.
5. The bench said the court is also mindful of the fact that directing a fresh NEET-UG test for the present year would be replete with serious consequences for over 2 million students, including in particular - (1) disruption of the admission schedule, (2) cascading effects on the course of medical education, (3) prejudicial impact on the availability of qualified medical professionals in future, (4) serious element of disadvantage to the marginalised groups of students for whom reservations have been made in the allocation of seats.