NEET-UG 2024 row: Supreme Court to hear batch of pleas related to controversy-ridden medical exam tomorrow

The Supreme Court is set to hear a batch of pleas related to the controversy-ridden medical entrance exam NEET-UG 2024 on Monday, July 8, according to the cause list for July 8 uploaded on the court's website.

The court will decree judgment on petitions seeking a direction to conduct the May 5 screening test afresh and those alleging irregularities and malpractices. A bench consisting of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, along with Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, is set to hear 38 petitions concerning the NEET-UG examination, reported PTI.

This development comes in the wake of recent affidavits submitted in the apex court by the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts NEET-UG. Recently, the Centre filed an affidavit contesting that scrapping the NEET-UG 2024 exam would be "counterproductive" and "seriously jeopardise" lakhs of honest candidates.

The Union Ministry of Education, in its affidavit, said, “It is also submitted that at the same time, in the absence of any proof of any large-scale breach of confidentiality in a pan-India examination, it would not be rational to scrap the entire examination and the results already declared,” reported HT. The Centre and the NTA opposed the pleas seeking scrapping of the exam, a re-test and a court-monitored probe into the entire gamut of issues involved in the backdrop of large-scale malpractices ranging from question paper leaks to impersonation.

The Union Health Ministry, in a notice dated July 6, stated that the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) has not notified the counselling schedule of NEET UG and PG courses. Hence, the counselling process for NEET UG has been postponed indefinitely. This development comes after the Supreme Court rejected a plea to delay the NEET UG counselling as scheduled on July 6.

The NTA annually administers the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG). This exam serves as a screening test for admissions to various medical courses in government and private institutions across the country, such as MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and others.

(With agency inputs)