Supreme Court Seeks NTA's Response on Plea to Cancel NEET-UG 2024 Exam Over Alleged Paper Leak

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre and National Testing Agency (NTA) on a plea seeking cancelling of NEET-UG 2024 exams over allegations of leak of question papers.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said the "sanctity has been affected" and "we need answers". However, the court refused to stay the counselling process for admission of those who have cleared the exam.

"Let the counselling start. We are not stopping the counselling," said Justice Nath as Senior Advocate Mathews J Nedumpara urged the court to stay the counselling.

Justice Amanullah told the NTA counsel, "It's not so simple that because you have done it (conducted the exam), it's sacrosanct. We need answers for that...The sanctity has been affected. So we need answers".

The bench said it would post the matter for hearing immediately upon reopening of the court and added that if more time is needed to file the response, the court will stop the counselling.

The fresh writ petition filed by a batch of students raised doubts about the sanctity of the May 5 exam in the light of allegations of exam paper leak and urged the court to cancel it and to direct NTA to hold it again.

In their plea, the students said, "After having stumbled upon news of the NEET exam paper leak they have been shaken at the core. Since, the breaking of news on the NEET exam paper leak, the Petitioners are under tremendous stress and anxiety ... their family members nurtured the dream of Petitioners becoming a medical practitioner one day."