Allahabad High Court seeks original documents in NEET anomalies

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has sought a reply from the National Testing Agency (NTA) regarding the alleged anomalies in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) Undergraduate (UG) examination 2024, results of which were declared on 4 June, and directed it to produce all original documents of the petitioner by 18 June.

The court also directed the petitioner to produce all her original documents.

The order was passed on Wednesday by a bench of justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan on a petition filed by Ayushi Patel, a NEET-UG 2024 aspirant from Lucknow.

The bench observed that the matter should be dealt with seriously as it relates to the future of aspirants, the counsel for the government said.

Ayushi Patel's counsel submitted that her result could not be generated due to a torn and damaged Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheet.

The petitioner sought directives from the court to direct the Union government to set up an inquiry against the NTA, and not to finalise the process of counselling.

Senior advocate S.B. Pandey, who appeared for the Union of India, submitted that there were no discrepancies or anomalies in the NEET-UG 2024.

The court said careful perusal thereof reveals that all the numbers shown in the application form of the petitioner are the same except the middle digit/number 3 mentioned in the original application form, whereas the details provided by the petitioner contain the digit/number as 8.

When the court asked the NTA counsel to clarify the aforesaid position, he requested and was granted three days to seek complete written instructions from the NTA on that point and produce all original documents of the petitioner from the stage of her application form till the declaration of results as well as the documents about email communication with NEET.

The petitioner shall also produce all her original documents enclosed with the petition, the court ordered.