NEET-UG 2024 Row: NTA Officials Manipulated OMR Sheets: Petitioner Moves To SC

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A plea in the Supreme Court accused the National Testing Agency (NTA) of manipulating Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets in this year’s NEET examination

NEET-UG 2024 Row: NTA Officials Manipulated OMR sheets: Petitioner Moves to SC

NEW DELHI: Today (24th June): A plea in the Supreme Court accused the National Testing Agency (NTA) of manipulating Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets in this year’s NEET examination.

Justices Manoj Misra and SVN Bhatti questioned the plea’s eligibility as an Article 32 writ petition and suggested the petitioner intervene in ongoing court proceedings instead.

The Court questioned, “How is this an Article 32 plea? You can withdraw your plea from the High Court and intervene in this case here.”

The plea alleges NTA officials engaged in swapping OMR sheets and calls for investigations by the CBI and ED into these malpractices.

The Supreme Court will hear this matter on July 8 alongside other NEET-related cases, including NTA’s plea to consolidate cases from various High Courts.

Earlier, on June 20, the Supreme Court stayed NEET-related proceedings in High Courts, issuing notices and consolidating cases. It had previously directed the NTA to respond to allegations of leaked NEET UG papers and decided not to disrupt counselling for medical college admissions despite concerns raised by candidates over irregularities in score adjustments and perfect scores reported in the results released on June 4.

Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra had earlier declined to stay the publication of NEET UG results on May 17.

The Supreme Court asked Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) not to treat petitions concerning NEET-UG 2024 as adversarial litigation and said that if a mistake has been made, it is better to acknowledge and rectify it.

Last week, the NTA informed the Supreme Court that the grace marks previously awarded to 1,563 candidates in the NEET-UG exam would be rescinded, offering these candidates the option to retake the exam on June 23.

The court was assured that the results of the re-test would be announced before June 30. If any of these candidates chose not to retake the exam, their original scores would be reinstated without the additional marks.

The results for the medical entrance examination, which saw 24 lakh students participate on May 5, were declared on June 4. Shortly after, allegations of an exam paper leak surfaced, with 67 students achieving a perfect score of 720/720.

Student organizations have voiced strong protests over various alleged NEET irregularities, including the distribution of incorrect question papers, Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets being torn, and delays in distributing these sheets.

These allegations have led to widespread dissatisfaction and calls for greater accountability and transparency in the examination process.