Supreme Court rejects plea against NEET-PG 2022

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (June 11) rejected a plea alleging discrepancies in the NEET-PG examination conducted in 2022 for admissions to post-graduate courses in various streams of medical sciences and seeking disclosure of answer keys and answer sheets.

"These petitions are rendered infructuous due to the passage of time,” said a vacation bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah while dismissing a plea filed by a candidate named Pritish Kumar and others in 2022.

The counsel for Kumar and others said the plea has not become infructuous as two out of the six petitioners would be taking up NEET-PG on June 23 this year.

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Post Graduate (NEET-PG) examination is conducted by the National Board of Examination (NBE) for admissions in various PG courses after the students complete MBBS, BDS and other equivalent courses.

Access to answer sheets

"The trouble is they (NBE) are not allowing us to access the answer keys, answer sheets, question papers (of NEET-PG 2022),” the lawyer said. The bench rejected the plea saying that it cannot keep it pending “unnecessarily”.

Pritish Kumar and others had filed the plea alleging that there were mismatches in their NEET-PG 2022 scores and the NBE was not permitting re-evaluation.

NEET-UG case

Earlier in the day, in a case regarding NEET-UG 2024, the Supreme Court sought responses from the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) on a plea seeking holding of a fresh examination on grounds of alleged question paper leak and other malpractices.

The top court, however, refused to stay the counselling of successful candidates for admissions to MBBS, BDS and other courses.

Taking note of the allegations, the vacation bench of Justice Nath and Justice Amanullah said what the NTA was supposed to do was sacrosanct. "Sanctity (of the exam) has been affected, so we need answers," it said.

Besides the Centre and the NTA, which conducts NEET-UG, the bench also issued notices to the Bihar government. There were allegations of malpractice in holding the exam in the state.

With agency inputs