Tanmoy Chattopadhyay v. National Testing Agency and Others is a public interest litigation (PIL) that alleges anomalies in the NEET(UG) 2024 examination. On Thursday, the Calcutta High Court requested the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) response.
According to the relevant marking/scoring methodology, the petitioner contended, the candidates who took the NEET(UG) 2024 exam could not have received a score of 718 or 719.
A division bench of Justices Kausik Chanda and Apurba Singh Ray noted that the NTA was using the Supreme Court’s ruling in Akshat Aggarwal and Others v. Union of India and Others to support its mark awarding. Based on this, the bench asked the agency to respond to the allegations with a proper affidavit within ten days.
“It appears that the National Testing Agency sought to justify awarding of such marks based on a judgment passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Writ Petition (Civil) No.600 of 2018 (Akshat Aggarwal & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.). Justification of such an exercise cannot be decided without an affidavit from the National Testing Agency/ respondent no.1. Accordingly, the respondent no.1 shall file an affidavit within a period of ten days from date in response to the allegations made in this writ petition,” the Court ordered.
Importantly, the Court also requested that NTA explain in its affidavit how the Central Government’s and the State’s reservation policies were adhered to in compiling the merit list for the examination in question.
After two weeks, the Court posted the case before a normal court, directing the NTA to hold onto the NEET (UG) 2024 Exam records until this Court issues an additional order.
“The outcome of the counselling process shall abide by the result of the writ petition,” the Court clarified.
Deputy Solicitor General of India Dhiraj Kumar Trivedi and advocate Tirtha Pati Acharyya appeared for the NTA and Union of India
On behalf of the other respondent, advocate Sunit Kumar Roy was present.
