CBSE moves SC on NEET results

The CBSE on Friday approached the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the Madras High Court order restraining it from publishing the results of the National Entrance cum Eligibility Test 2017 for admission to medical and dental courses across the country.

The high court, on May 24, granted interim stay on the publication of NEET results on a batch of pleas alleging that a uniform question paper was not set and there was a vast difference between the question papers in English and Tamil.

Urgent hearing
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), through Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh,
mentioned the matter before a vacation bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and Deepak Gupta and sought an urgent hearing. Singh said, due to the high court ruling, the entire schedule of counselling and subsequent admission for medical courses through NEET had gone “haywire”.

He said 12 lakh candidates had appeared for  NEET 2017.

The apex court said it would hear the matter on June 12 as it concerns the future of around 12 lakh aspirants for MBBS and BDS courses.

Around 10.5 lakh students have written the exam in either Hindi or English, while around 1.25 lakh to 1.50 lakh students have appeared in eight vernacular languages, including Kannada and Tamil.

Singh told the apex court that a number of pleas have been filed in various high courts on NEET-related matters and high courts have entertained the petitions despite the apex court's order that no other court shall hear such matters.

He also sought transfer of petitions relating to NEET from various high courts, including one filed in Gujarat HC, to the apex court. The petitioners before the HCs had contended that the question papers set in English and other languages were of different difficulty level.