New Delhi, June 11, 2024.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre and National Testing Agency (NTA) on a plea seeking cancelling of NEET-UG 2024 exams over allegations of leak of question papers.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said the “sanctity has been affected” and “we need answers”. However, the court refused to stay the counselling process for admission of those who have cleared the exam.
“Let the counselling start. We are not stopping the counselling,” said Justice Nath as Senior Advocate Mathews J Nedumpara urged the court to stay the counselling.
Justice Amanullah told the NTA counsel, “It’s not so simple that because you have done it (conducted the exam), it’s sacrosanct. We need answers for that…The sanctity has been affected. So we need answers”.
The bench said it would post the matter for hearing immediately upon reopening of the court and added that if more time is needed to file the response, the court will stop the counselling.
The bench noted that a bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud is already seized if matter on the issue and is scheduled to hear it on July 8 and tagged the present petition also for hearing along with the other.
The fresh writ petition filed by a batch of students raised doubts about the sanctity of the May 5 exam in the light of allegations of exam paper leak and urged the court to cancel it and to direct NTA to hold it again.