Meghalaya: Supreme Court Considers Plea by Meghalaya Students for NEET-UG Retest

SHILLONG: In significant relief for ten NEET-UG aspirants from Meghalaya the Supreme Court issued notice today on their plea requesting directions for the National Testing Agency (NTA) to allow them to take a retest. The students claim they lost substantial time during the May 5 examination due to discrepancies.

These ten students moved the Supreme Court. They are demanding inclusion in the group of 1,563 candidates granted grace marks. The group was offered retest on June 23. Alleging unfair treatment the students seek to be part of the retest group. They lost 40-45 minutes during their original examination.

Supreme Court vacation bench, comprising Justices Vikram Nath and S V N Bhatti responded to the plea with an order. It stated, “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 next date fixed.”

The court has scheduled the next hearing of the petition for July 8.

Yoothica Pallavi representing the ten students, argued the petitioners were similarly disadvantaged as the 1563 candidates allowed a retest. Pallavi highlighted these students who appeared at Meghalaya test centers were deprived of their full allocated time due to wrong question papers and conflicting instructions from examiners.

"The petitioners were denied allocated time of 3 hours and 20 minutes. A lot of time was wasted due to the supply of wrong question papers. Contradictory instructions were given to the students by the examiners." Pallavi explained.

She further stated due to the lack of clarity on which question paper to answer. The students lost almost 40-45 minutes on average. Despite suffering these disadvantages, they were excluded from the proposed retest.

Pallavi urged court to allow these students to take the June 23 retest or to arrange a fresh examination on another suitable date.

In related development the Supreme Court stayed the proceedings pending before various High Courts. These concern the alleged NEET-UG paper leak issuing notice on transfer petitions by NTA. The vacation bench ordered stay on proceedings until the next hearing.

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