NEET UG 2024: The Supreme Court on Monday announced that the next hearing on NEET UG matter will take place on July 11. A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and comprising other two Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra were hearing nearly 30 petitions today.

The top court has directed CBI to submit report indicating status of investigation. Further, the judges have directed the NTA to apprise it of time duration between occurrence of question paper leak and conduct of exam on May 5.

The lawyers representing a petitioner said that they were seeking the cancellation of the exam on grounds such as paper leak, OMR sheet manipulation, impersonation and cheating. While hearing the case, Judge Chandrachud said “is it possible for the court or an expert to identity red flags… 720/720 is one. Not all students are fraudster, some may be super bright.. we need to see how many are from the 1563 candidates.”

The development comes after the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET UG) 2024 was deferred till further notice. Earlier, the NEET UG all-India quota (AIQ) seat counselling was scheduled to start on July 6.

NEET 2024 | NEET likely in online mode |  CBI gets custody of 4 accused | Radhakrishnan committee seeks suggestions on NTA exam reforms, functioning |  President on paper leaks | Glaring gaps in NEET exam centres | Education Minister takes responsibility |

Various coaching institutes, students, and parents petitioned the Supreme Court on the NEET UG 2024 that was conducted on May 5. In these pleas, petitioners have alleged paper leak, some have demanded cancellation of the full exam and reconduction of the medical entrance exam, some have asked for an investigation into operations of the NTA, and more.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) also conducted a re-test for the NEET UG for some students who got grace marks in the medical examination. With the revised results, the topper tally has come down from 67 to 61, as six of the candidates – whose score jumped to perfect 720/720 after they were awarded grace marks due to loss of exam time – failed to get a perfect score in the retest. However, they repeated high scores upwards of 680.

NEET 2024 | CBI takes over NEET UG probe | Candidates memorised NEET answers in Bihar | NEET PG postponed | Candidates response to cancelling NEET PG | 

Meanwhile, the education ministry, in its affidavit filed with the top court past week, has acknowledged that there were “instances of irregularities, cheating, impersonation, malpractices” during the conduct of NEET UG. However, there is no mention of a paper leak. It goes on to state further that “in the absence of any proof of any large-scale breach of confidentiality in a pan-India examination it would not be rational to scrap the entire examination”.

The NEET UG is conducted by NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. NEET-UG 2024 was held across 4,750 centres on May 5 and around 24 lakh candidates appeared in the exam.