Shillong: In a positive development for tribal students from Meghalaya, who were earlier denied the NEET-UG retest, the Supreme Court on Friday issued notice on a plea seeking directions to the National Testing Agency (NTA) to allow them to appear in the retest.
Ten NEET aspirants from Meghalaya had approached the Supreme Court demanding a retest amidst allegations of discrepancies during the exams.
These students had allegedly lost 45 minutes and prayed to the court that they should be a part of the 1,563 students who got grace marks and were given the option to appear for re-exam on June 23.
“Issue notice. Tag (with the pending batch of petitions). In the meantime, learned counsel appearing for respondents NTA and Union of India may file their response within two weeks. The other respondents may also file their response on or before the next date fixed,” ordered a Supreme Court vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and S V N Bhatti.
The Supreme Court has scheduled the hearing of the Meghalaya students’ petition for July 8.
Yoothica Pallavi, representing the students, argued in her writ petition that they were similarly situated as the 1,563 students permitted to take the retest on June 23. She said that the students lost 40-45 minutes at their test centres in Meghalaya due to the NTA’s actions.
Pallavi highlighted that the petitioners were not included in the proposed retest despite suffering due to the NTA’s errors. She submitted that the students were denied their full allocated time of 3 hours and 20 minutes because of wrong question papers and contradictory instructions from the examiners. This confusion led to the students losing an average of 40-45 minutes of their exam time.
She further alleged that the petitioners were arbitrarily denied the chance to appear in the fresh examination despite being similarly placed as the 1,563 students who faced similar issues. She sought the opportunity for the students to appear in the June 23 retest or a fresh examination on another suitable date.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has stayed proceedings in various high courts concerning the alleged NEET-UG paper leak. Issuing a notice on transfer petitions filed by the NTA, the Supreme Court has halted proceedings in different High Courts until the next listing date.
Meet Mahtab Ahmad, known for his keen insights into the latest trends and news. Join Mahtab on his blog, where every post is a exploration of the ever-evolving now.