The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will not issue an immediate CBI investigation into allegations of a paper leak and other irregularities in the NEET (UG) 2024 examination.
“Petition considered. We do not pass an ex-parte order. What CBI investigation? Can a CBI investigation be ordered ex-parte today? Is that your submission?” a vacation bench presided over by Justice Vikram Nath asked a lawyer praying for an “imminent CBI investigation” into the matter.
The bench, which also included Justice Sandeep Mehta, stated that the National Testing Agency (NTA) has two weeks to respond to the new petitions calling for a CBI or SIT investigation into the alleged paper leak.
Additionally, the court rejected a request to instruct Bihar Police to submit a status report on their investigation of the paper leak before the next hearing. “You have made all the allegations in your petitions. We have given them (NTA and others) two weeks time to file their response. They will come up with their response,” the apex court said..
The collection of petitions, including those seeking the cancellation of the exam, is scheduled for the next hearing on July 8.
Historically, the Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to halt the admission counseling process for medical programs following the NEET (UG) 2024 examination.
In a decision made on Thursday, the Supreme Court resolved the issue regarding the awarding of grace marks in the NEET (UG) exam. This followed the NTA’s submission that the scorecards of 1,563 candidates, who had received compensatory marks due to time loss, had been revoked and canceled.
These candidates can choose to either retake the exam on June 23 or proceed with counseling based on their actual scores without normalization.
The Supreme Court noted that the previously announced counseling schedule would remain unchanged since the re-test results would be released by June 30.
