NEET-UG 2024: NTA in reply to Supreme Court opposes cancellation of exam in its entirety | India News

The NTA said that isolated and sporadic instances of alleged document leaks, which are limited to a very small number of candidates, may not be considered sufficient to challenge and impugn the sanctity of NEET-UG 2024.

Protest against leaking of NEET 2024 question papers (Image: PTI)

New Delhi: The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Friday told the Supreme Court that cancellation of the entire National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Under Graduate) (NEET-UG 2024) medical entrance examination conducted on May 5 would be extremely prejudicial to the larger public interest involving the academic career of lakhs of students who attempted the exam fairly without any wrongdoing or even an allegation of wrongdoing.

NTA filed its affidavit before the Supreme Court in response to a series of petitions alleging irregularities in the NEET-UG 2024

The NTA filed its affidavit before the Supreme Court in response to a batch of petitions raising grievances over alleged irregularities/malpractices in the conduct of the entrance examination.

Several petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of the examination, cancellation of grace marks awarded to over 1,500 medical aspirants, re-conduct of the examination and an inquiry into the alleged irregularities.

The Supreme Court is expected to consider several petitions on July 8

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud is scheduled to hear all the petitions related to the NEET-UG 2024 exam on July 8.

The NTA, in its affidavit, stated that it was not a case where the entire examination process conducted in 4,750 centres in 571 cities (including 14 cities abroad) suffered systematic failure as it was not vitiated by all the pervasive factors of unfair means or leakage of documents and the alleged irregularities were confined to some centres in Patna and Godhra and abandonment of the entire entrance examination would seriously jeopardise lakhs of candidates who attempted the examination fairly.

Isolated and sporadic cases of alleged leakage of documents limited to very few candidates are not enough to undermine sanctity of NEET-UG 2024: NTA

“It is submitted that if the entire examination process is cancelled without there being any tangible factors justifying such actions, it would be extremely detrimental to the larger public interest involving the academic careers of hundreds of thousands of students who attempted the examination fairly without any wrongdoing or even an allegation of wrongdoing,” the NTA said.

The NTA further said that isolated and sporadic instances of alleged document leaks, which are limited to a very small number of candidates, may not be considered sufficient to challenge and impugn the sanctity of NEET-UG 2024.

“Even otherwise, a proportionately large number of candidates, who are not involved in and have no connection with such incidents, do not deserve to make innocent victims of the adverse consequences arising from avoidable re-conduct of the entire examination,” the NTA said.

The Ministry of Education also opposed scrapping the exam in its entirety.

The Education Ministry also filed a separate statement before the Supreme Court and said that it would not be rational to cancel the exam in its entirety in the absence of any evidence of large-scale breach of confidentiality in a pan-India exam and that cancelling the exam in its entirety would seriously jeopardize the lakhs of honest candidates who attempted the question paper in 2024.