Centre seeks more time from SC to submit high-level committee report on NTA

New Delhi: The Union government has filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking more time to submit a report by a high-level committee formed after alleged irregularities in the NEET UG-2024 conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 5.

The government sought three weeks additional time from the stipulated date of September 30 to submit the report by the panel headed by Dr K Radhakrishnan, former Chairman, ISRO to suggest effective measures for conducting transparent, smooth and fair conduct of examinations by the NTA.

The committee has prepared a comprehensive first draft of its report to be submitted to the Ministry of Education. However, it has been intimated by the committee that the said draft needs more improvement to effectively communicate the essence of all the deliberations and consultations and bring out a robust road-map for conducting future national entrance tests in a more transparent manner with zero error and under a tamper-proof architecture, the government said.

The committee has sought an extension of three weeks' time for the submission of the final report to further deliberate and frame effective, action-oriented recommendations toward making the NTA a more robust public examinations conducting body.

In an application, the government asked the court to modify its August 2, 2024 judgment to grant time upto October 21, 2024 for submission of the report by the committee.

The court had earlier fixed the deadline of September 30 for the submission of the report by the committee in its judgment in a writ petition filed by Vanshika Yadav. It had then rejected the plea for a retest of the NEET.

In its plea, the government submitted that in compliance and pursuance to the directions passed by this court, the committee held 22 meetings till September 18, 2024 to evaluate the current challenges, complexities in conducting high-stake examinations, potential risks, as well as security measures involved in the process.

The committee also held consultations with various stakeholders, including online consultations on MyGov Portal, in which 37,144 responses were received from students, guardians, academicians, experts etc.

It also held physical consultations with exam conducting agencies, state governments, police officials, regulatory bodies, academicians, students technology solution advisors, global testing experts etc.