NEET-UG row: SC declines to stay NEET 2024 counselling, issues notice to NTA

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay NEET-UG 2024 counselling again. The apex court has issued a notice to the National Testing Agency. Today's decision was pronounced by a vacation bench of the apex court while hearing multiple pleas demanding probe, cancellation, and retest of the NEET-UG 2024 exam due to allegations of question paper leaks and other malpractices.

The National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) has recently come under fire for the way it selects candidates for medical school seats. The NEET is currently overseen by the Ministry of Education’s autonomous National Testing Agency (NTA). On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a notice on petition filed by National Testing Agency (NTA) seeking the transfer of pleas relating to NEET-UG, 2024 from the High Court to the apex court.

It sought an independent probe into alleged malpractices involving a paper leak and award of grace marks.

A vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and SVN Bhatti issued notice on four transfer petitions filed by the NTA and 11 other petitions raising similar grievances. The matter was posted along with a batch of pending cases on the same issue coming up for hearing on July 8.

Last week, the court had refused to stay the counselling, observing that even a minor negligence needs to be dealt with thoroughly

"If there is 0.001% negligence on the part of anyone it should be thoroughly dealt with,” the court had said.

On Thursday, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that the National Testing Agency will be strengthened by “reconsidering important things” amid the recent NEET UG and UGC NET test controversy.