SC reiterates not to stay NEET UG counselling; retest for 1,563 candidates on June 23

New Delhi, June 13 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Thursday reiterated that it would not pass any interim direction to stay the admission counselling process to medical programmes pursuant to the NEET UG 2024 examination amid the allegations of paper leak and other irregularities. During the hearing, a vacation bench presided over by Justice Vikram Nath was apprised that the scorecards of 1,563 candidates, who were awarded compensatory marks on account of loss of time, had been withdrawn and cancelled.The counsel representing the National Testing Agency (NTA) said that these candidates may choose to appear in a re-test likely to be held on June 23, adding that the counselling schedule announced earlier will not be disturbed since the results of the re-test would be declared by June 30.The actual marks obtained by these 1,563 candidates without normalisation would be emailed to them, and if any of these candidates choose not to appear in the re-test, results based on actual marks will be treated as final, submitted NTA before the Bench, also comprising Justice Sandeep Mehta.Taking the aforesaid into account, the apex court decided to close the issues pertaining to the grant of grace marks in the NEET UG exam.However, it issued notice to NTA and others on a plea seeking cancellation of the NEET exam held on May 5 and tagged the matter with pending petitions, which are coming up for hearing on July 8.Multiple pleas have been filed before the apex court seeking directions for the conduct of an expeditious and thorough investigation of the “malpractices and fraud involved” in the NEET examination and a stay on declaration of results till the investigations on paper leak are completed.Further, the pleas sought directions to NTA to recall the results of the examination conducted on May 5 and conduct the examination afresh after issuing due public notice.–IANSpds/dpb