SC, Delhi HC seek NTA response on pleas raising grievances on OMR sheets and out-of-syllabus questions in NEET-UG

The National Testing Agency (NTA) continued to face the heat over the conduct of the undergraduate National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2024 on Thursday with both the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court seeking its response on separate petitions about raising grievances on Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets and out-of-syllabus questions.

A Vacation Bench of the apex court headed by Justice Manoj Misra issued notice and directed the NTA to clarify the time limit for raising grievances about OMR sheets provided to the candidates in the exam.

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Meanwhile, a Delhi High Court Vacation Bench of Dharmesh Sharma ordered the NTA to state its stand on a petition by a NEET candidate alleging ‘out of syllabus’ questions.

In the Supreme Court, senior advocate R. Basant, appearing for a private coaching centre, said a few students had not received their OMR sheets. Though the apex court Bench initially questioned the coaching centre’s locus standi to file a writ petition under Article 32 alleging violation of fundamental rights, it later asked the NTA counsel to file a reply and tagged the petition along with other NEET matters scheduled for hearing on July 8.

On June 20, the top court had sought responses from the Centre, the NTA and others on a slew of petitions, including those seeking scrapping of the NEET-UG 2024 and a court-monitored probe.

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The apex court had orally observed that even “0.001 per cent negligence” on the part of anyone in the conduct of the examination should be thoroughly dealt with. The CBI is investigating allegations of irregularities in the exam.

The petition in the High Court alleged that a question in the Physics section was based on ‘radioactivity’ when ‘radioactivity topic’ was not a part of the syllabus for NEET-UG 2024. The petitioner also alleged a “manifest error” with respect to another question for which NTA declared the “incorrect option” as the right answer.

A vacation Bench of Justice Dharmesh Sharma granted two weeks’ time to the counsel appearing for the authorities — the Centre, the NTA and the National Medical Commission, to file their response and posted the petition for July 16.