Bombay HC dismisses 4 NEET petitions, imposes Rs 5,000 cost on each student
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Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The Bombay High Court on Thursday imposed a cost of Rs 5,000 each on four NEET aspirants for filing petitions based on incorrect and unsubstantiated information while challenging the results declared by the National Testing Agency (NTA) earlier this month.
The petitioners — Hricha, Soham, Atharva and Rahul — were directed to pay Rs 5,000 each as litigation costs by a Division Bench comprising Justice N. B. Suryawanshi and Justice A. D. Shinde during a hearing at the High Court's Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Bench.
The High Court dismissed all four petitions, observing that the students had approached the court on the basis of incorrect and unsubstantiated information.
The petitions alleged that the results declared by the NTA following the re-NEET examination held on June 21 were erroneous and that there were discrepancies in the evaluation of the petitioners' answer sheets.
Advocate Rohit Sarvadnya, Senior Panel Counsel for the Union of India, told the court that there was no infirmity in the results declared by the NTA. The court subsequently upheld his contention after directly verifying the original answer sheets.
Sarvadnya told the media that, in view of the allegations regarding incorrect evaluation and declaration of results, the High Court had directed that the original answer sheets of the concerned students be brought from Delhi in sealed packets.
"The original answer sheets were produced before the High Court and examined by the Bench. The students, their parents, and their advocates were also given an opportunity to inspect the original answer sheets," Sarvadnya said.
Following the examination of the original records, it became clear that the marks and results declared by the NTA were consistent with the answers recorded in the original answer sheets and that there was no error or discrepancy in the results declared by the agency, he added.
Sarvadnya said that in view of the findings recorded after verification of the original answer sheets, the High Court dismissed all four petitions.
The court also imposed costs of Rs 5,000 on each petitioner for approaching it on the basis of incorrect and unsubstantiated information.
The orders in the cases reaffirm the importance of verifying original examination records before making allegations regarding the accuracy of results declared by an examination authority.
With IANS inputs