Supreme Court Refuses To Postpone NEET Counseling Amid Paper Leak Allegations, Issues Notice To NTA

The Supreme Court on Friday (21 June) refused to postpone the counseling process through the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) exam amid rumours of the paper leak.

A notice was issued to the exam-conducting agency, National Testing Agency (NTA) by the vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and S V N Bhatti on fresh pleas seeking cancelation of the NEET exam.

The counseling is scheduled to begin on 6 July while the Supreme Court will take up the matter on 8 July. The bench said that since the counseling process takes time, that time should not be lost.

In a previous hearing earlier this week, the Supreme Court had asked the NTA to take "timely action." It has already ordered a re-exam of those 1,563 students who were given grace marks.

The controversy arose after the results of the NEET exam, taken by 24 lakh students on 5 May, were declared on 4 June. The Bihar Police SIT got confessions of four accused on the paper leak.

However, a political storm started after that in the state as Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha alleged that the perpetrator of the paper leak is linked to RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav's aide.