The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned to July 18 the hearing on alleged irregularities surrounding the NEET UG 2024 exams and calls for re-examination.
The hearing was to be resumed today but the Solicitor General requested rescheduling, citing personal commitments for Monday and Tuesday, prompting the court to defer the hearing to next Thursday.
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Earlier on Wednesday, the Centre had submitted before the court that its analysis of the NEET-UG 2024 examination didn’t reveal any widespread anomalies. The Centre told the court that it has not found any evidence suggesting a specific group of candidates were benefitted leading to abnormal perfect scores.
During the first hearing on July 8, the Supreme Court had directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) responsible for conducting the examination, to make full disclosure about the nature of the leak, places where the leak took place and the lag of time between leak and conduct of the exam that took place on May 5, 2024.
Hearing the case, a bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud also questioned the Centre and the NTA about their efforts to identify students who may have benefitted from the alleged leak and asked them to file affidavits by July 10.
“The fact that the sanctity of the examination has been breached… compromised, is beyond doubt. Now the question is how widespread is the breach,” the CJI had remarked, adding if candidates guilty of wrongdoings are not identified, the court will have to order retest.
Besides seeking information from the NTA, Chief Justice Chandrachud, heading a bench also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file a status report on its investigation and the material that has come to light during its probe. The bench had deferred passing any order on the merits and posted the matter for hearing on July 11.
