NEET exam: Supreme Court issues notice to Centre, NTA on petition seeking CBI investigation, hearing on July 8

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has issued notice to the National Testing Agency (NTA) and Centre on a batch of petitions raising concerns about paper leaks and seeking a CBI investigation into the alleged instances of paper leaks in the conduct of the NEET-UG 2024 exam on May 5 this year.

A vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta sought a response from the NTA within two weeks and tagged the cases with earlier petitions raising similar issues, which were listed on July 8.

Meanwhile, the court reiterated that medical admission counselling cannot be stopped.

The apex court also issued notice on a transfer petition filed by the NTA seeking to transfer to the top court a petition filed in a High Court alleging paper

leaks and irregularities in the conduct of NEET-UG, 2024.

It tagged the NTA's transfer petition along with other petitions pending before it.

Yesterday, the NTA told the Supreme Court that the scorecards of 1563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates who got "grace marks" will be cancelled and the students will have a chance to reappear for the exam.

The NTA had said that a committee has been constituted to review the results of over 1,563 candidates who were awarded "grace marks" to compensate for the loss of time suffered while appearing for NEET-UG.

"The exam will be conducted on June 23 and the results will be declared before June 30," it added. The apex court had already refused to stay the counselling of NEET-UG, 2024.

"Counselling will go on and we will not stop it. If the exam goes, then everything goes in totality, so nothing to fear," the bench had said.

Aspirants have raised the issue of leakage of the question papers, awarding compensatory marks and anomalies in the question of NEET 2024. Several petitions were filed in the apex court seeking direction to recall NEET-UG 2024 results and to conduct the examination afresh, alleging paper leakage and malpractices in the test held on May 5.

The NEET-UG exam, administered by the NTA, is the entry point for admission to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other relevant programmes in both public and private educational establishments nationwide.