In a decision, which is going to bring relief to lakhs of candidates across the nation, the Supreme Court has asked the medical entrance exam conducting body, the national testing agency (NTA), to release the NEET 2021 result. Meanwhile, the Bombay High Court order against which the NTA had sought SC intervention has been stayed.

The SC was hearing the matter regarding NEET re-exam for two candidates from Solapur, Vaishanavi Bhopali and Abhishek Shivaji. 

In the hearing, the NTA accepted that there was a mistake by Invigilators resulting in a mismatch of answer sheets of 6 candidates. 

The bench of Justices L Nageswar Rao, Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai said, “We cannot delay results for 16 lakh students. We need to balance interests.”

The court asked NTA to come back with a plan on what is to be done for the two students who lost time due to the confusion on exam day.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the NTA and said that the other 4 students who faced similar fate completed their papers and got good marks.

Last week, a division bench of justice RD Dhanuka and justice Abhay Ahuja of the Bombay High Court had asked the NTA to re-conduct the exam for the two candidates. It had also asked the NTA to give the aspirants an advance notice of 48 hours about the date of the retest and the exam centre and to declare the petitioners results in two weeks.

The NTA on Monday sought an urgent hearing in the Supreme Court on its plea against the high court order.

The NEET was held on September 12 and close to 16 lakh candidates had appeared for it.

(With inputs from Abraham Thomas)