MP HC stays retest of NEET-UG candidates affected by power outage in exam centres

Indore, Jul 1 (PTI) The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Tuesday stayed the retest of candidates affected by power cuts at exam centres in Indore and Ujjain during the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) held on May 4 for admission to undergraduate medical courses.

Justice Vivek Rusia and Justice Binod Kumar Dwivedi of the Indore bench of the high court gave this verdict after hearing the arguments of all the concerned parties on the appeal filed by the National Examination Agency (NTA), a lawyer representing the candidates said.

The NTA had challenged the order of a single bench of the high court passed on June 23, in which it ordered the agency to conduct a retest of NEET-UG for candidates affected by power cuts, noting that they were placed at a disadvantage despite no fault of theirs.

Talking to reporters, Mridul Bhatnagar, the lawyer of the affected candidates, said, "After the hearing, the division bench stayed the single bench's June 23 order till the decision is taken on the appeal filed in this case. The court fixed July 10 as the next date of hearing in the case." While pleading on behalf of the NTA in the high court before it passed the order, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta requested the division bench to stay the June 23 single bench order as an interim relief.

About 22 lakh candidates appeared in NEET-UG across the country, including 27,264 students from 49 examination centres in Indore, Mehta told the court.

He said that power supply was disrupted for 10 to 15 minutes in some centres of Indore, but there was sufficient natural sunlight and a committee of experts has come to the conclusion that the disruption in power supply did not affect the performance of the candidates of these centres.

Mehta stressed that a candidate from one of the centres in Indore where power supply was disrupted had performed exceptionally well in NEET-UG and secured the second rank at the all-India level.

He also argued that if the NEET-UG exam is conducted again for candidates from centres where power supply was disrupted, the difficulty level of the questions would be different from the previous exam.

The petitioners argued that their performance in the entrance exam was affected by a power outage amid bad weather, and they should be allowed to retake the test.

The June 23 order of the single bench said that without any fault on their part, candidates were put into a disadvantageous position due to a power outage, which did not prevail in the other examination centre or even in the same centre where some students were sitting in favourable spots with sufficient natural light.

The court had directed the NTA to conduct the examination as expeditiously as possible for the affected candidates and declare the results, making it clear that the petitioners' rank, based solely on their scores in the retest, should be considered. PTI HWP MAS ARU NP