As the controversy over National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) undergraduate (UG)-2024 for admissions to MBBS, BDS and others courses continued, the National Testing Agency (NTA) informed the Delhi High Court on Wednesday that it will seek transfer of all the matters related to National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) undergraduate (UG) examination 2024 controversy to the Supreme Court while EdTech firm ‘Physics Wallah’, Alakh Pandey, has moved the Supreme Court against alleged random award of grace marks by the NTA.

The plea urged the top court to set up an expert panel under its supervision to “enquire into the examination process and results of NEET (UG) 2024.

Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the NEET UG results, the National Testing Agency (NTA) has addressed some frequently asked questions related to the examination.

Earlier, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta appeared before a vacation bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna of Delhi High Court and said the NTA will move a transfer petition before the Supreme Court. A vacation bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna, meanwhile, issued notice and asked the NTA to respond to four petitions.

The petitions have been filed by National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG), 2024 candidates raising these grievances. Following in the footsteps of the Supreme Court, the high court also refused to stay the counselling process.

Mehta told the court that petitions related to the NEET UG exams have been filed before several High Courts of the country and to ensure that there are no conflicting views by the High Courts, the NTA will request the Supreme Court to hear all such matters.

The court granted the NTA counsel’s prayer for time to respond to the petitions and listed the matter for further hearing on July 5. At the outset, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench that several pleas have been filed in seven different high courts relating to alleged irregularities in the conduct of the NEET-UG, 2024 examination and some are pending before the Supreme Court. He said the NTA will soon file a transfer petition in the apex court for consolidating all the pleas.

“We are filing transfer petitions in the Supreme Court because there is a likelihood of conflicting views by different high courts. Could your lordship consider waiting for a week or two? We will file a transfer petition,” Mehta told the court.

The law officer said these petitions can be broadly categorised as raising the issues of grant of grace/compensatory marks, alleged paper leak and anomalies in answers to certain questions. The counsel for some of the petitioners urged the court to direct the authorities to not start the counselling for the time being or note that the counselling will be subject to the outcome of these petitions.

The top court had said on Tuesday the sanctity of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG), 2024 has been affected and sought responses from the Centre and the NTA on another plea seeking holding of the examination afresh on grounds of alleged question paper leak and other malpractices.

Lawyer J Sai Deepak, who appeared for Pandey, mentioned the plea for urgent listing on Tuesday before a vacation bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah. The bench asked him to approach the apex court registry with his plea.

“Multiple petitions have been listed in the Court. Some of the petitions were filed before the declaration of results on the basis that there had been a leak of the paper itself. Notices have been issued in regard to those petitions. Our petition is slightly different.

“We represent Alakh Pandey, who has collected signatures from about 20,000 students which clearly shows that close to about 70 to 80 marks have been awarded in grace marks randomly to at least 1,500 students. We are challenging the arbitrary award of grace marks. The court has indicated that our matter will also be taken up with the other matters but the court is clear that it will not stay the counselling process at this stage,” lawyer Sai Deepak said.

The NEET-UG 2024 examination was held by the NTA on May 5 across 4,750 centres and around 24 lakh candidates took it. The results were expected to be declared on June 14 but were announced on June 4, apparently because the evaluation of the answer sheets got completed earlier.

The NEET-UG examination is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in Government and private institutions across the country.