NEET UG counselling gets postponed

NEW DELHI: The counselling for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET UG) 2024 has been postponed until further notice. This decision follows the Supreme Court’s refusal to delay the NEET UG counselling, which was scheduled to begin on Saturday, July 6, 2024.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud along with Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, will address various petitions regarding NEET UG 2024 on July 8. These petitions include allegations of paper leak, demands for cancellation and reconduction of the medical entrance exam, and requests for an investigation into the operations of the National Testing Agency (NTA), among other issues.

However, NTA has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court opposing the cancellation of the exam. NTA stated that the alleged malpractices were confined to the centres in Patna and Godhra, and thus, the entire exam should not be cancelled based on these isolated incidents.

Notably, NEET UG counselling is conducted in multiple rounds, including stray vacancy and mop-up rounds. Students who have qualified for the medical entrance test have to register and pay the counselling fees, select and lock their choices, upload necessary documents, and report in person to the allotted institute.

Meanwhile, NTA released the results of the retest for 813 out of 1,563 candidates, conducted on June 23. With these revised results, the number of top scorers has decreased from 67 to 61. This change occurred because six candidates, who initially achieved a perfect score of 720/720 after being awarded grace marks due to loss of exam time, did not attain a perfect score in the retest. However, they still scored high, with marks above 680.

Meanwhile, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh criticised the Narendra Modi-led central government over the NEET-UG controversy, stating that the future of millions of youths is at risk under their administration. “The NEET-UG issue is worsening daily. The non-biological PM and his biological Education Minister are adding further proof of their demonstrated incompetence and insensitivity. The future of lakhs of our youth is unsafe in their hands,” Ramesh posted on his social media account X (formerly Twitter).

On the other hand, BJP- led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is under fire from the opposition due to irregularities in the NEET-UG 2024 exam. The central government has informed the Supreme Court that, without evidence of a large-scale breach of confidentiality in the NEET-UG 2024 examination, scrapping the entire exam would not be rational. The Ministry of Education stated that cancelling the NEET-UG exam, held on May 5, would “seriously jeopardise” the future of several honest candidates who took the test in 2024.