The Delhi High Court has rejected a petition by three medical aspirants who were asking for permission to retake the NEET UG 2024 exam on June 23 due to a claim of loss of time during the initial test on May 5. They argued that they were not given extra time or grace marks to compensate for the time lost. However, the court found that they were indeed given extra time during the exam when their initial question paper had to be replaced.
The court referred to the report of the Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC), which stated that the petitioners were not entitled to a re-test as they had already been given extra time. Therefore, the court dismissed the petition on the grounds of lack of merit.
The petition was filed by four NEET-UG aspirants, and while three of them took the test at one center, the fourth candidate took it at another. They claimed that they were initially given a specific set of question papers and OMR sheets, which were later replaced during the exam, resulting in a loss of time. They requested to be allowed to appear for the re-test scheduled for June 23, which was to be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
The NTA’s representative informed the court that all aspects related to the exam centers, including the ones where the petitioners took the test, had been considered and that the GRC’s final report showed no loss of time at the center where the three petitioners were. The representative also clarified that the initial question papers were replaced within five minutes of the examination start and that all 492 candidates at that center were given corresponding extra time to compensate for the loss.
The NTA’s counsel also stated that the fourth petitioner had been granted grace marks and was allowed to reappear in the test on June 23 as per the Supreme Court’s directions.
The high court noted that although the Supreme Court was already examining issues related to the NEET examination, the present petition brought before it was different