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Synopsis

The Supreme Court today has directed National Testing Agency to publish the results of all candidates who appeared for the NEET UG 2024 exam on its website while masking their identities.

"The results should be uploaded by 5 PM tomorrow", a CJI DY Chandrachud led bench has ordered today.

Court will continue hearing the petitioners on Monday now.

The National Testing Agency, which conducted the NEET UG, 2024 on May 5, told the Supreme Court that the entirety of the exam was carried out fairly and with due confidentiality without any illegal practices. 

Later, Supreme Court told the agency that it should not be in self-denial as it was a well know fact that the NEET UG 2024 exam question paper was leaked.

Notably, in the plethora of petitions that have been filed before the Supreme Court relating to the NEET UG 2024 exam, the court has decided to first hear the petitioners seeking a re-test.

Senior Advocate Hooda, appearing for the petitioners had told the bench also comprising Justices Pardiwala and Manoj Misra that the fault is at a systemic level and at a large scale.

 Union government submitted an affidavit before the Supreme Court opposing the plea to cancel the NEET UG 2024 held on May 5 for admission to undergraduate courses in medical colleges across the country, saying scrapping the exam in entirety would seriously jeopardise the lakhs of honest candidates.

Education Ministry submitted the Union government is committed towards conduct of all competitive examinations in a fair and transparent manner. 

As regards these alleged instances, the Ministry said it has asked the premier investigation agency, Central Bureau of Investigation which functions at national level, to conduct a comprehensive probe into the entire gamut of alleged irregularities including conspiracy, cheating, impersonation, breach of trust, destruction of evidence by the candidates/institutes/middlemen. CBI has registered the case on June 23, 2024 u/s 120B, r/w 420, 419, 409, 406, 201 IPC and Sec 13(2) r/w 13(1)(a) of PC Act. 

As many as 56 NEET qualified candidates from Gujarat have also approached the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Centre and the National Testing Agency to restrain from cancelling the all India test held on May 5, 2024 and take action against only those who indulged in unfair means or any illegal activity.

A petition has also been filed before the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the National Testing Agency (NTA) not to pass any order amounting to cancellation of NEET-UG 2024 examination.

On June 14, the Supreme Court of India had also issued notice in a plea seeking CBI probe into the alleged leak of NEET UG entrance paper. Court sought responses from both NTA and Central government while clarifying that it is not going to stop the ongoing counselling process.

In another plea, Central government had informed the Supreme Court that the grace marks given to candidates who got less than the allotted time to write the NEET undergraduate exam 2024 have been cancelled.

The Supreme Court has been flooded with pleas over the NEET UG 2024 examination. A fresh plea was also filed by Alakh Pandey, questioning the NTA's decision to award grace marks to 1563 candidates due to time loss in NEET -UG examination, leading to shooting up of overall merit list.

While dealing with a writ petition filed by Shivangi Mishra and others over the alleged leak of the NEET UG paper, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah also issued notice to the National Testing Agency's (NTA) seeking its response saying the "sanctity of the exam seemed to have been affected".

Another plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a fresh examination of NEET, held on May 5, 2024 for admission to medical colleges across the country, in view of alleged paper leak and other malpractices.

The court, however, had refused to stay the ongoing counselling for admissions. The plea seeking a direction for a fresh examination to admission to undergraduate courses in medical colleges across the country has also been fixed for hearing on July 8, when another such plea is scheduled to come up for consideration.

Cause Title: Shivangi Mishra & Ors vs. National Testing Agency