Cancellation of NEET UG would be counterproductive and detrimental to public interest: NTA to SC

New Delhi: The National Testing Agency on Friday told the Supreme Court that cancelling the controversial NEET-UG 2024 exam would be extremely counterproductive and significantly detrimental to public interest, especially the career prospects of those who cleared it.

In its affidavit filed in response to one of the petitions filed before the Supreme Court, the NTA, which conducts the NEET-UG exam, said the alleged incident/attempt to abscond does not seem to have any impact on the conduct of the entire exam held on May 5 as the number of candidates implicated by the investigating agencies is minuscule compared to the number of candidates who appeared.

“Cancellation of the examination in its entirety on the basis of the above factor would be extremely counterproductive and significantly detrimental to the public interest, particularly the career prospects of qualified candidates,” he said.

The agency said the NEET-UG 2024 exam was conducted fairly and confidentially without any illegal practices and the allegation of “massive malpractice” is “totally baseless, misleading and devoid of any merit”.

A complete scrapping of the NEET-UG 2024 exam would “seriously jeopardise” lakhs of honest candidates and would not be rational in the absence of any evidence of large-scale breach of confidentiality, the Centre also told the Supreme Court in a separate affidavit on Friday. The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) was conducted on May 5 by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a series of petitions on July 8, including those alleging irregularities in the May 5 review and seeking a direction that it be conducted again.

Allegations of irregularities, including leaked documents, have led to protests in several cities and clashes between rival political parties.