The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a batch of petitions related to the controversial National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 exam on Monday, July 8, according to the cause list uploaded on the court’s website. The bench, consisting of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, will hear 38 petitions concerning the NEET-UG examination. These petitions seek a direction to conduct the May 5 screening test afresh, alleging irregularities and malpractices during the exam.
This development follows recent affidavits submitted to the apex court by the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA), the body responsible for conducting NEET-UG. The Centre, in its affidavit, argued that scrapping the NEET-UG 2024 exam would be counterproductive and severely disadvantage lakhs of honest candidates. The Union Ministry of Education also stated that in the absence of concrete evidence of widespread breaches of confidentiality during the pan-India examination, scrapping the entire exam and the already declared results would be unreasonable.
The Centre and the NTA strongly oppose the pleas seeking to scrap the exam, conduct a re-test, and initiate a court-monitored probe into the alleged malpractices, which include question paper leaks and impersonation.
On July 6, the Union Health Ministry issued a notice stating that the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) had not yet notified the counselling schedule for NEET UG and PG courses, effectively postponing the counselling process indefinitely. This comes after the Supreme Court rejected a plea to delay the scheduled counselling on July 6.
The NTA conducts the NEET-UG annually to screen candidates for admission to various medical courses, including MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and others, in government and private institutions across India.
