Supreme Court refuses to stay NEET counselling, seeks NTA’s response on paper leak, grace marks

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today issued notice and sought response from the National Testing Agency (NTA) on NEET UG controversy and paper leak allegations. The top court was hearing the fresh petition filed by 10 aspirants on grace marks, discrepancies among other irregularities. However, the court has refused to stay NEET UG counselling, which is scheduled to start on June 12. NEET UG Controversy 2024 LIVE

Supreme Court on NEET controversy said: “Sanctity of the exam has been compromised. So we need answers”. A vacation bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah was hearing the matter.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) examination is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admissions to MBBS, BDS and AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country.

The top court tagged the plea filed by Shivangi Mishra and others with the pending one and asked the NTA to file the response in the meantime, the PTI reported. The plea alleged that NEET-UG, 2024, was riddled with malpractices as various paper leaks allegations were reported by the petitioners.

The alleged paper leak was violative of Article 14 (right to equality) under the Constitution as it gave an undue advantage to some candidates over others who chose to attempt the examination in a fair manner, it said.

Alakh Pandey, CEO of Physics Wallah, who also filed a petition against the “arbitrary grace marks” told the ANI that “Our PIL will be listed tomorrow. It is regarding the paper leak as well as the grace marks, the transparencies of NTA and everything else. For today's listing, the Supreme Court said that the sanctity of the exam is compromised that means somewhere they also feel that there have been some kind of issues in the examination and asked NTA to answer this before 8 July but they have not given any relief on the counselling..."