Supreme Court Adjourns NEET-UG Hearing To July 18 | Read
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned the hearing of the petitions seeking the cancellation of the NEET-UG 2024 exam until next Thursday (July 18).
The Court granted the adjournment to enable the petitioners to file their responses to the affidavits filed by the Centre and the National Testing Agency yesterday.
Though the bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud initially proposed to list the matters next Monday (July 15), Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta cited a personal difficulty.
SG stated that both he and the Attorney General won’t be available on Monday and Tuesday. Considering that next Wednesday is a holiday (owing to Muharram), the Court then posted the matters to next Thursday.
The bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was considering a batch of petitions seeking the cancellation of the NEET-UG 2024 exam held on May 5 on account of paper leak and unfair means.
Yesterday, the Union Government filed an affidavit denying any mass malpractice in the NEET-UG 2024 exam. It said that the data analytics done by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras showed that mark distribution followed a bell-shaped curve that is seen in any large-scale exam, indicating no abnormalities.
The NTA, on its part, has filed an affidavit stating that the video showing a photo of the NEET UG exam paper leaked on Telegram on May 4 was fake. The timestamp was manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak, it added.
On the last hearing date (July 8), a bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud sought the responses of the Union/NTA on the extent of the paper leak and possible segregation of the wrongdoers from others.
The Court said that if the sanctity of the entire exam has been affected and it was impossible to separate the beneficiaries of fraud from the honest candidates, then a re-test may be necessary. The Court also said that the re-test would be the last option, considering the impact on nearly 24 lakh students.
