Supreme Court Postpones NEET UG Hearing to July 18

The Supreme Court today deferred the NEET UG hearing to July 18, as responses from the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) were still pending from some parties.

During the brief hearing, the petitioners' counsel requested the pleas be listed on July 15. However, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta indicated he would be unavailable on that day. Considering this, Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, heading the bench, announced that the next hearing will be on Thursday, July 18.

The bench acknowledged receiving a status report from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the progress of the investigation into alleged irregularities in the NEET UG 2024 conduct.

This update follows the Centre’s assertion to the Supreme Court that data analytics of the NEET UG 2024 results by IIT Madras found “no abnormality” and indicated “no signs of mass malpractice or localized benefits leading to abnormal scores.”

On July 8, the Supreme Court had inquired whether data analytics could be used to identify suspect cases and segregate compromised students from those untainted to detect any mass malpractice.

“City-wise and centre-wise analysis was conducted for two years (2023 and 2024) to identify any abnormal trends. The analysis, focused on the top 1.4 lakh ranks, is sufficiently detailed to detect any anomalies, such as a large number of students achieving high ranks (top 5%) through malpractice or specific exam centres or cities showing undue benefits. The analysis indicates no mass malpractice or localized benefits,” the affidavit stated.

“There is a general increase in scores, particularly in the 550 to 720 range, attributed to a 25% reduction in syllabus. Additionally, candidates achieving high scores are spread across multiple cities and centres, suggesting a low likelihood of malpractice,” it added.

Meanwhile, students are eagerly awaiting an update on the NEET UG 2024 counselling schedule. The Centre announced that counselling will be held in four rounds starting from the third week of July and warned that any participant found guilty of malpractice will have their candidature canceled at any stage during or after the counselling process.

Over 23.33 lakh students took the exam on May 5 at 4,750 centres across 571 cities, including 14 overseas cities. The results have sparked widespread protests over issues such as an inflated number of toppers, alleged paper leaks, awarding of grace marks due to a wrong question, loss of exam time, and other irregularities.