The Supreme Court rejected review pleas filed by ministers of six opposition-ruled states against its August 17 order allowing the National Test Agency (NTA) to hold NEET and JEE exams in September. The hearing was scheduled for 1:30 pm today. A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari considered the review plea in chambers.

The review plea has been filed by ministers from West Bengal (Moloy Ghatak), Jharkhand (Rameshwar Oraon), Rajasthan (Raghu Sharma), Chhattisgarh (Amarjeet Bhagat), Punjab (BS Sidhu) and Maharashtra (Uday Ravindra Sawant).

While the JEE Main exam for engineering aspirants started on September 1, the NEET exam for medical aspirants will be held on September 13. The three-judge bench said, “The plea does not merit reconsideration.” The ministers had claimed in their plea that the top court order failed to secure students’ “right to life” and ignored “teething logistical difficulties” to be faced in conducting the exams during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In its judgement, the SC upheld the Centre’s decision to hold the competitive examinations and said, “A crucial year of students cannot be wasted and life has to go on” while dismissing the students’ pleas for postponement.

The petition said as per the NTA, approximately 9.53 lakh and 15.97 lakh students have registered for JEE (Main) and NEET (UG), respectively. The plea said JEE Mains is slated to be conducted over 660 exam centres with 9.53 lakhs students appearing for it, roughly 1,443 students per centre. Similarly for NEET UG, 15.97 lakhs students will appear in 3,843 centres across the country, nearly 415 students per centre, it said.

Source: News 18

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