NEET UG 2021: Supreme Court stays Bombay HC order, allows NTA to declare results

The National Testing Agency has been allowed to announce the results of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Examination undergraduate (NEET UG) 2021 by the Supreme Court of India. The apex court today, 28 October, stayed the earlier order of the Bombay High Court which had stopped the declaration of the NEET results for the re-exam of two candidates. The stay on the high court order means that the NEET UG 2021 results can be expected soon, along with the release of the final answer key. The Supreme Court bench hearing the petition of the NTA against the Bombay High Court order, said that the scores of 16 lakh candidates, “who are eagerly waiting for the results”, cannot be delayed for the re-exam of two students. The bench, comprising of Justices B.R. Gavai, L Nageswara Rao and Sanjiv Khanna also directed the NTA to conduct the NEET UG 2021 re-exam of the two medical aspirants, Abhishek Shivaji and Vaishnavi Bhopali, who claimed they were handed answer sheets and question papers with different serial numbers, resulting in a mix-up. The Supreme Court bench said that “we will see what we can do” for the two medical aspirants. On 20 October, the Bombay High Court had directed the NTA to hold a re-exam for the two students and stayed the NEET results, directing that the results of the re-exam be declared along with the NEET UG 2021 results. The court had, however, said that this order should not be seen as a precedent. The Centre had approached the apex court against the order , stating that any delay in the NEET UG 2021 result declaration can further delay the admission process for various undergraduate medical courses such as MBBS, BDS, BUMS and BAMS courses. It had appealed for an urgent hearing in the matter due to the same. The NEET UG 2021 was conducted on 12 September, with the provisional answer key being put out by the NTA on 15 October. Applicants were given time until 17 October to raise any challenges related to the answer key.