The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay the counselling process for NEET-UG 2025 candidates on the grounds that it would affect around 22 lakh students, who appeared for the exam.
The Bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice AS Chandurkar passed the order on two petitions filed by NEET-UG 2025 candidates, seeking re-test on the grounds that they suffered a power outage in Madhya Pradesh centres during their examination.
The candidates moved the Apex Court challenging the July 14 verdict of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, which refused to order a re-test for them.
A lady counsel, appearing for one of the petitioners, sought provisional permission for aggrieved students to register for counselling.
The Bench said that in other words, the petitioner was seeking a stay on counselling. This could not be done as it would affect around 22 lakh students, said the Apex Court and adjourned the matter for further hearing on July 25.
One of the other counsels clarified that the prayer was for re-examination. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government, agreed to this demand.
The petition challenged the Madhya Pradesh High Court order, which refused to direct a re-test for the NEET-UG 2025 candidates, who were affected by power outage at the centres in Indore and Ujjain.
A single-judge Bench of the High Court had directed the National Testing Agency to conduct re-test of the NEET-UG 2025 exam for candidates the power outage-affected candidates. It observed that since the petitioners were put at a disadvantage for no fault of theirs, a re-test was necessary. It further directed that the counselling process would be subject to the re-test.
A Division Bench, however, set aside the single-judge Bench order last week after taking into consideration an expert committee report, which said that even though there was power outage at some centres, there was sufficient natural light enabling the candidates to take the test.
The Division Bench further noted that only 70 out of the 27,264 students had filed the original writ petitions.
The post Supreme Court refuses to stay counselling of NEET-UG 2025 appeared first on India Legal.