NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday paved the way for declaration of the results of the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to undergraduate medical courses across the country and stayed the Bombay HC order, which had restrained National Testing Agency from declaring the result.
The Bombay HC had on October 20 passed the stay order on the plea of two students who had raised grievances against the all India test conducted on September 12. It had directed the agency to hold fresh exams for the two students and declare their results along with the main result of all other medical aspirants who took the exam.
The NTA thereafter immediately rushed to the SC and pleaded for an urgent hearing.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the agency, submitted before a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Sanjiv Khanna and B R Gavai that the confusion regarding two students could be examined and rectified but the agency should be allowed to declare the result as more than 16 lakh students took the examination and are waiting for the result.
The bench agreed with the plea of the solicitor general and allowed the agency to declare the exam. “There shall be stay of the impugned order passed by the HC, until further orders,” it said. “We will decide what happens to the two students upon reopening. But we can’t hold the results of 16 lakh students,” it said. The two students had moved the HC alleging that their test booklets and OMR sheets got mixed up during the NEET exam. The HC had directed the NTA to conduct fresh examinations for them before declaration of results.