SC junks review pleas filed against NEET-UG verdict

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has dismissed a review petition filed against its verdict refusing to conduct the NEET-UG 2024 exam afresh.

After perusing the review petition, a bench, headed by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, said that no case for review was made out and dismissed it.

"There is no error apparent on the face of the record. No case for review under Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules 2013 has been established. The review petition is, therefore, dismissed," ordered the Bench, also comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

The review petition filed by one of the petitioners, under Article 137 of the Constitution, challenged the decision rendered on July 23, which had said that there was no "systemic leak of question paper", breaching the sanctity of the entire competitive exam.

Generally, review pleas are tested on very narrow grounds like mistakes of law, errors apparent on the face of the record, etc., and are often dismissed in chambers and are rarely given an open court hearing.

In its detailed judgment, the Supreme Court said that it was mindful of the fact that directing a fresh exam would be replete with serious consequences for over two million students who had appeared for the NEET-UG exam held on May 5.

However, it clarified that its order won’t prevent authorities from taking action against candidates who had secured admission using malpractices.

Expanding the remit of the High-Level Committee of Experts constituted by the Centre in the wake of the NEET-UG examination controversy, the SC had directed the expert panel to formulate a standard operating procedure (SOP) regarding the timeline for registration, change of exam centres, sealing of OMR sheets and other processes related to the conduct of exams.

"The Ministry of Education shall take a decision on the recommendations made by the committee within a period of one month from receiving the report," it had ordered.

The Union Ministry of Education established a seven-member expert panel -- headed by Dr K. Radhakrishnan, former Chairman of ISRO and Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Kanpur -- to recommend effective measures for the conduct of transparent, smooth and fair examinations by the National Testing Agency (NTA). The High-Level Committee of Experts was formed after the SC asked the Centre to detail the steps taken to ensure the sanctity of the NEET in the future. The Supreme Court also deprecated the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) decision to award compensatory marks to 1,563 students on account of loss of time, which was later recalled after several petitions were filed before the top court. Further, it asked the NTA to re-tally the marks afresh given the opinion rendered by the expert panel of IIT Delhi in respect of a contentious physics question. As many as 44 candidates were able to secure full marks because of the NTA’s decision to treat two options as the correct answers to the ambiguous question.