The Supreme Court has dismissed the writ petition seeking cancellation of NEET-UG 2021 Entrance Examination held on September 12 this year by the National Testing Agency across the country. The petition had prayed for a direction to conduct fresh examination in order to protect the interests of genuine, deserving and meritorious candidates.
The division bench of Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice B.R. Gavai held that interference in the matter would create confusion and doubts about the examination and would not be in the interest of students.
Senior Advocate Salman Khursheed, appearing for the petitioner, submitted before the Court that petitioners are not demanding cancellation of the examination however praying for the report of the investigation of all the four FIRs should be given. The Court refused to grant the relief prayed for by the petitioners.
Later, Khusheed requested the Court to grant him permission to withdraw the petition and the Court granted the same. The petitioners submitted through the petition that the FIR registered by CBI made it clear that the NEET-UG 2021 entrance examination paper was leaked under criminal conspiracy wherein involvement of renowned coaching centres and paper solver gangs have been found. On the date of the examination itself, CBI registered FIR against 4 accused persons and unknown others.
They further submitted that FIR clearly states that the process of examination was manipulated by using proxy candidates and an exorbitant amount upto Rs 50 lakh per candidate was charged by coaching centres and solver gangs. That there are multiple FIRs registered in different states on the same cause of action.
They have submitted that any such admission is certainly violative of Article 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution of India as it smacks of unfairness to those sincere and meritorious candidates. In fact, NEET UG 2021 entrance examination held on September 12, 2021. Apart from the CBI, multiple FIRs have also been registered by police in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra in respect of NEET UG 2021 Entrance Exam Paper leak.
The petitioners pleaded that the present case is squarely covered by the Apex Court’s judgment reported as “Tanvi Sarwal vs. Central Board of Secondary Education and Ors. reported as (2015) 6 SCC 573” wherein All India Pre-Medical /Pre-Dental Entrance Test held on 03.05.2015 for Academic Session 2015-2016 (conducted by CBSE) was cancelled by the Court as the examination was vitiated by the use of unfair means and malpractices.