NEET-UG row: SC tells NTA to declare centre-wise & city-wise results by July 20

The supreme court on Thursday told the NTA to declare NEETUG exam centrewise and citywise results of NEETUG 2024 by 12 noon of July 20The top court also directed the NTA to mask identity of students while declaring centrewise results as hearing was underway on ThursdayThe top court will resume hearing the arguments on July 22 on a batch of pleas seeking cancellation retest and a courtmonitored probe into the allegations of largescale malpractices in the prestigious test held on May 5During the day long hearing the court said it prima facie appeared that the question paper leak was limited to Patna and Hazaribagh and nothing of this sort can be said to have happened in Godhra in GujaratWhile in Patna and Hazaribagh the question papers allegedly got leaked in Godhra there were claims that a person involved in holding the test took money for filling up the OMR sheets of certain candidatesQuestioning the claims about leak of question paper on social media platform Telegram the bench said You have to bear in mind that the idea of somebody doing this was not to make a national charade People did it for money So it was not to bring disrepute to the exam and somebody was doing it to make money which is evident Mass leakage requires contacts also at that level so that you connect to all such key contacts in different citiesAny order for conducting the NEETUG 2024 afresh has to be on the concrete footing that the sanctity of the entire exam was affected the Supreme Court saidThe top court adjourned the cases listed ahead of the NEETUG pleas and said We will open the case today Lakhs of young students are waiting for this let us hear and decideThe bench comprising Chief Justice of India CJI D Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwla and Manoj Misra asked the petitioners seeking cancellation retest and a courtmonitored probe into the alleged irregularities to show that the paper leak was systemic and affected the entire examination warranting cancellationReexamination has to be on concrete footing that the sanctity of the entire test was affected the CJI saidThe bench said The CBI probe is on If what the CBI has told us is revealed it will affect the investigation and people will become wiseAs per the PTI report the bench is hearing more than 40 pleas including those filed by the National Testing Agency NTA which conducts NEETUG seeking transfer of cases pending against it in various high courts regarding the alleged irregularities in the exam to the Supreme Court to avoid multiplicity of litigation