Supreme Court Adjourns NEET-UG 2024 Hearing: Petitioners to Respond

The Supreme Court has postponed the hearing on alleged NEET-UG 2024 exam malpractices to July 18, allowing petitioners time to respond to affidavits from the Centre and NTA. The Centre denies any mass malpractice, indicating normal score distribution. NEET-UG results face scrutiny from aspirants alleging paper leakage.

The Supreme Court on Thursday postponed the hearing on allegations of paper leakage and malpractices in the NEET-UG 2024 exam to July 18. This decision provides petitioners time to respond to affidavits submitted by the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) the previous day.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, along with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, noted that some parties had not yet received these affidavits and needed additional preparation time for their responses. The Central government, on July 11, submitted an affidavit denying any mass malpractice in the May 5 exam.

The Centre's affidavit cited data analytics by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, stating no evidence of mass malpractice or any localized group benefiting with abnormal scores. The submission also outlined that the counselling process would commence in the third week of July, spanning four rounds.

Further specifying consequences for candidates involved in malpractice, the affidavit mentioned that any such individual would have their candidature canceled at any stage, either during or after the counselling process. The NTA, in a separate affidavit, declared that a video purportedly showing the NEET-UG exam paper leaked on Telegram to be fake, manipulated to appear as an early leak.

NTA’s analysis of the distribution of marks on national, state, and city levels laid out that the scoring was normal, and no extraneous factors influenced the distribution. The Supreme Court is hearing several pleas from aspirants who demand the NEET-UG 2024 results be recalled and a fresh examination conducted due to allegations of paper leakage and related malpractices.

The NEET-UG examination, a gateway for admissions into MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other related courses across India, was conducted across 4,750 centers, with around 24 lakh candidates participating.