The Supreme Court on Thursday paused all cases on the alleged leaks and malpractices pertaining to the NEET-UG 2024 row from various High Courts, and issued a notice to the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA). The bench constituting Justice Vikram Nath and Justice SVN Bhatti sought the government's and the NTA's response by July 8 when the matter will next be heard.
The bench heard a total of 14 petitions during the hearing. Of these, 10 were filed by 49 students and a student organisation called 'Student Federation of India'. Meanwhile, the remaining four were submitted by the NTA.
In their petitions, the NTA demanded a direction to transfer all pending cases in various high courts linked to the NEET exam row to the top court.
One of the petitions from the students' side was to constitute a court-appointed committee. The top court, however, asked the lawyer to list the matter for July 8 with the rest of the petitions.
The Supreme Court also refused to halt the NEET counselling process, repeating its stand. The bench said that if the examination continues after the final hearing, the counselling will also follow.
"These students appeared in Meghalaya centre...they lost 45 minutes. They should be a part of the 1,563 students," one of the lawyers of the students told the bench during the hearing.
"Let Union (government) and NTA respond. Issue notice. Let a reply be filed by July 8. No stay," the bench replied.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court refused to halt the NEET counselling, and also declined to direct the CBI to take up the probe into the alleged paper leaks and malpractices. Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta said there could be no CBI probe without hearing the other parties involved.
Earlier in the day, media accessed a confession letter written by 22-year-old Anurag Yadav, the NEET candidate arrested in connection with the result irregularities. He admitted that the leaked question paper provided to him matched the actual exam question paper.
