NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court today directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to publish the results of all NEET UG students on their website city-wise and centre-wise masking the identity of the candidates. NTA has been given time till Saturday 12 pm to upload the result on their website.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwla and Manoj Misra were hearing on a batch of nearly 40 petitions related to the medical entrance exam NEET-UG 2024, saying that it has “social ramifications”.
The hearing will now resume on Monday (July 22) at 10:30 am as the Bench hopes to ‘conclude the hearing before lunch’.
Listed as items 5 to 9, in today’s hearing, the NTA counsel, Solicitor General and petitioners’ advocate(s) argued over the authenticity of IIT Madras’ data analysis report, alleged leak through Telegram and the nature of spread of the paper and more.
The Centre and the National Testing Agency have opposed the demand for re-test stating that the malpractices are localised and that the sanctity of the exam has not been affected.
However, the petitioners have argued that the nature of the leak is widespread and claimed that the paper was leaked before May 3, while the exam was on May 5.
Meanwhile, the Bench will also take a decision on NEET UG counselling on Monday.
The Centre said counselling will be conducted in four rounds starting from the third week of July.
“For any candidate, if it is found that he/ she has been the beneficiary of any malpractice, candidature of such person would be cancelled at any stage during the counselling process or even afterwards,” it said earlier.
Today, the Solicitor General requested against a stay on counselling, as he argued that ‘counselling will take two three months. It will start on July 24 or so’.
In its first hearing that took place on July 8, the Supreme Court asked about the actions the Centre and NTA took to identify the beneficiary students of the wrongdoing.
The apex court also directed Centre, and NTA to submit affidavits by July 10 (5 pm).
“The fact that the sanctity of the examination has been breached… compromised, is beyond doubt. Now the question is how widespread is the breach,” Chandrachud said while hearing petitions of those seeking as well as those opposing cancellation of the May 5 NEET UG exams over paper leak allegations. — (The Indian Express)