NEET-UG 2024: Supreme Court issues notice on NTA’s plea seeking transfer of petitions

NEET-UG 2024: The Supreme Court issued notice on Monday on petitions filed by the National Testing Agency (NTA) seeking the transfer of cases pending before the Rajasthan High Court related to the NEET-UG 2024 exam to the top court.

The apex court is seized of a batch of petitions seeking direction to recall NEET-UG 2024 results and to conduct the examination afresh, alleging paper leakage and malpractices in the test held.

The bench, presided over by CJI DY Chandrachud, agreed to issue a notice in the transfer petition and ordered to tag with the main batch of petitions, including pleas seeking cancellation of the NEET-UG exam, which is coming up for hearing on July 18.

However, when the advocate representing the NTA requested the honourable court to stay the proceedings before the Rajasthan High Court, the SC refused, saying that in a transfer petition, the High Courts do not proceed with the matter.

Earlier on June 14, the apex court issued notice in similar transfer petitions filed by the NTA. The exam body had sought the transfer of pleas challenging the award of grace marks as well as the alleged paper leak concerning the NEET filed before the Delhi High Court. On June 20, the top court stayed the proceedings pending before various high courts pertaining to the alleged NEET-UG paper leak and tagged all the petitions with the main matter.

Meanwhile, the Centre, in its latest affidavit filed before the top court, said that the data analysis conducted by IIT Madras showed that there was neither any indication of mass malpractice nor a localised set of candidates being benefitted leading to abnormal scores in the NEET-UG examination held on May 5 this year.

NEET-UG 2024 was taken by 23.33 lakh students on May 5 across 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 cities overseas. However, several aspirants had approached the top court and raised the issue of leakage of question paper, awarding compensatory marks and anomaly in the question of NEET-UG.