NEET UG 2024: Supreme Court seeks NTA response on plea to return OMR answer sheets to candidates

The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the response of the National Testing Agency (NTA) to a plea seeking directions to return OMR answer sheets to the candidates who took the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) undergraduate exam 2024 [Xylem Learning vs NTA]. .A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and SVN Bhatti issued notice to the NTA on a plea filed by a private coaching institute and a few NEET candidates and tagged the petition with the pending matters related to NEET 2024. The Court also asked NTA whether there is any timeline to return the OMR sheets."Let us know if there is a timeline to provide the OMR sheets. As of now we will tag it. Let NTA seek instruction on this," the Court directed.The petition will be heard along with other NEET cases on July 8."NTA accepts notice through advocate Vardhaman Kaushik. Let this matter be tagged with the lead petition . List on July 8," the Court ordered..Senior Advocate R Basant appearing for the institute stated that OMR sheets were not being provided to the candidates who wrote the exam.However, the Court questioned the locus of the institute in filing a plea under Article 32 of the Constitution which enables people to move the Supreme Court directly only in case of violation of fundamental rights.."This is an Article 32 plea by a coaching centre. What fundamental right is involved here," the Court asked."The other petitioners are students. We (institute) coach a lot of students and their grievances need to be aired," Basant said.On the other hand, the NTA maintained that the petitioners were making "general statements" and that OMR sheets were indeed being provided..The Court eventually issued notice to NTA. .[Read hearing details here]