NEET UG 2024: Hearing in Supreme Court postponed to July 18

The hearing in the batch of petitions seeking cancellation of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Undergraduate exam 2024 (NEET UG 2024) on the ground of question paper leak, was deferred by the Supreme Court on Thursday..A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said that it will hear the case on July 18, Thursday since some of the parties were yet to examine the replies filed in the case by the Central government and the National Testing Agency (NTA)."NTA and Union has filed replies. Some counsel have not got the e copies of the replies. In order for parties to peruse replies, further hearing to be on July 18, Thursday," the Court said. .The Court is seized of a batch of petitions relating to alleged irregularities including allegations of mass question paper leaks.The petitioners have sought re-exam on the said ground. Some of the petitioners have also opposed the same saying the leaks are individual aberrations and not a widespread leak. On June 11, the Supreme Court ordered the NTA to respond to some of the petitions but refused to halt counselling for admissions of students to medical colleges.During the hearing on July 8, the Court had said that it would have to determine to what extent the exam was compromised to decide whether a retest would be needed or not.The Central government as well as the NTA have contended that there is no need to cancel the exam or hold a re-examination, as there was no proof of large-scale breaches of confidentiality.In an affidavit filed before the apex court on Wednesday, the Central government said that data analytics conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras on the results of the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) undergraduate 2024 showed no abnormalities and concluded that there was very less likelihood of malpractice having taken place.The Centre told Supreme Court that an exhaustive technical evaluation of the data pertaining to NEET(UG) 2024 was undertaken by IIT Madras. The parameters used for such study included marks distribution among candidates, city-wise and centre-wise rank distribution, among others.The NTA too echoed the same and also stressed that a video showing a mass paper leak to have happened a day prior to the exam on May 5, was edited to create a "false impression of an early leak".