NEET-UG Results Row: The Supreme Court bench headed by DY Chandrachud on Monday said that the court will start hearing at 2PM and hear those petitioners seeking re-test first.
The bench said this before rising for lunch. The court also added that at first it will hear the petitioners seeking re-examination, then it will hear pleas of individual concerns and then it will hear the NTA and Centre.
A lawyer who appeared for a batch of students in Meghalaya told the court that there case was different as they also deserved opportunity for re-test like the 1563 students as they faced a delay of 1 hour to 40 mins on the exam date, but they were neither given grace marks or opportunity to re-appear. NTA however, denied the claim and said data shows no time lag.
The top court requested the lawyers to make arguments one by one and laid down a sequence for hearing the pleas.
The Supreme Court is all set to hear a batch of petitions alleging paper leak, use of unfair means and other malpractices in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) undergraduate (UG) examination 2024 results. A bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud will hear the petitions today.
The top court has earlier issued notice to the National testing Agency (NTA) on several petitions filed by students. While initially those aggrieved demanded re-examination, later many students who cleared the exam have also approached the top court against re-test.
Several students who recently moved the apex court contended that cancellation of results and re-examination will be an arbitrary decision and will violate their fundamental righs under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of Constitution. They oppose cancellation of NEET-UG 2024 test and propose re-evaluation of all OMR sheets to address complaints of rank inflation and tampering. They also sought re-evaluation of 24,000 candidates for whom the NTA opened a window for registration after the initial deadline had passed.
On the other hand, many petitioners who complain of inflation in marks have attributed this inflation to paper leak and demanded a re-examination.
The Centre has already cancelled grace marks awarded to 1563 candidates and conducted a re-test for them. However, even after the raging controversy and demands for re-examination, nearly 48 percent of the candidates did not appear for the retest.
In its reply in the Supreme Court, the Centre opposed a re-examination. "The exam in entirety would seriously jeopardise the lakhs of honest candidates who attempted the question paper in 2024,” read Centre's response in the top court.
Earlier, the Bihar police arrested four persons in Nawada in connection with the alleged attack on CBI team, probing the UGC-NET leak case.
On June 22, 2024, the Centre handed over the investigation of the NEET-UG paper leak to the CBI. Shortly after assuming responsibility, the CBI filed an FIR and launched a criminal case against unidentified individuals involved in the incident.
The Centre also sacked the NTA chief, Subodh Kumar, replacing him with Pradeep Singh Kharola.
The Education Ministry has also set up a seven-member panel to review the NTA's functioning and recommend reforms in the examination's conduct.
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