The Supreme Court told the National Testing Agency (NTA) and Centre to look into the NEET UG 2024 issue and deal with it strictly if any negligence was found on their part.
The matter was heard by a vacation bench of justices Vikram Nath and SVN Bhatti. The court was hearing a petition filed by a group of candidates led by Amulya Vijay Pinapati.
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“Even if there is 0.01% of negligence on your part, it should be thoroughly dealt with,” said the SC as the court issued notice on two other petitions challenging discrepancies in the results of NEET-UG 2024 and sought cancellation of the exam.
The court said that a person who plays fraud on the system and gets admission to the (medical) course will be more deleterious to society while reminding the Centre and NTA not to be unmindful of the labour children have put into preparing for this examination.
The court also issued notice on another petition filed by Nitin Vijay challenging the award of grace marks and asked NTA to file its response by July 8.
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Meanwhile, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said the government would take strong actions against functionaries of the National Testing Agency (NTA) if they were found to be involved in irregularities in the conduct of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), 2024.
“Additional wrongdoings have also come to the fore in two locations. I assure both students and parents that the government has taken the issue very seriously. We will take it to a logical end,” he said.
The NEET 2024 results, announced on June 4, 2024, triggered a massive uproar, with several aspirants and parents demanding a probe and seeking a “re-exam”, alleging that the paper was leaked at certain centres where students got high scores.
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(With inputs from Abraham Thomas)
