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The Supreme Court has summoned a response from the National Testing Agency (NTA) regarding allegations of inconsistent mark calculation on OMR sheets used in the NEET-UG 2024 exam. Justices Manoj Misra and SVN Bhatti, sitting on a vacation bench, issued a notice and requested the NTA’s reply by July 8, the date of the next hearing.
The petition, filed by the learning app Xylem Learning, also raised concerns about the time limit for addressing grievances related to the OMR sheets. The bench queried the existence of a timeline for providing these sheets, indicating their intent to tag the issue for NTA to clarify.
During the proceedings, the bench scrutinized the involvement of coaching centers in filing such petitions, asserting that coaching centers have no substantive role in these matters. They pointed out, “This is a (Article) 32 petition initiated by a coaching center. What Fundamental right of yours is violated? This is one of the reasons why we see this role played by the coaching centers and bagpipers. They have hardly any role to play. Their obligation and duty… if they have discharged their service that is the end of the matter. They have not undertaken to ensure that everything the Centre is supposed to do will be taken care of by them.”
Responding to this, senior advocate R Basant clarified that the petitioners, which included students, were primarily concerned with obtaining their OMR sheets, as some students had not yet received them. Their interim request was centered on accessing these sheets promptly.
Several petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to invalidate the NEET-UG 2024 results and to conduct a fresh examination, alleging instances of paper leakage and malpractices during the test held on May 5. Despite these challenges, the apex court had previously declined to halt the counselling process for NEET-UG 2024.
NEET-UG, conducted by the NTA, serves as the gateway for admissions into MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other related courses across government and private institutions nationwide.
