Supreme Court defers hearing of plea challenging NEET-UG re-test to July

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, postponed the hearing of the plea challenging the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) decision to reschedule NEET-UG 2026 for nearly 22 lakh candidates until July.

The NEET-UG 2026 exam, which was first held on May 3, was canceled across the country on May 12 following allegations of paper leaks. As a result, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) launched an investigation and a fresh investigation was scheduled for June 21.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice V. Mohana directed that the matter be listed before a Bench headed by Justice PS Narasimha, which is currently hearing a batch of cases related to the NEET exam.

However, Justice Narasimha’s bench will sit only after the Supreme Court resumes regular sessions on July 13, effectively rendering the defense ineffective.

Former Deputy Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr. The plea filed by Mangala Kohli seeks to cancel the decision to re-conduct NEET-UG 2026. He claims that the blanket cancellation of the exam and the decision to retest nationwide unfairly penalized thousands of well-intentioned candidates who had no connection to the paper leak.

“The petitioner submits that the allegations regarding paper leaks and malpractices in examinations are serious and require stringent investigation and exemplary action against all those involved, but the constitutional rights and legitimate interests of bona fide candidates cannot be sacrificed due to institutional and administrative failures attributable to the authority conducting the examination itself,” the plea said.

The petition also seeks to direct the Center and other authorities to introduce secure, technology-driven examination and evaluation systems for future national-level examinations, including encrypted digital question distribution mechanisms, biometric authentication, AI-assisted monitoring and robust computer-based testing infrastructure.

It also seeks to constitute an independent expert committee to examine institutional limitations in the functioning of the NTA and recommend corrective measures.

As an interim measure, the petitioner sought deferment of the decision to conduct NEET-UG re-test pending the final decision of the case.

Earlier, the Bench led by Justice Narasimha had expressed serious concern over the cancellation of the exam following allegations of paper leak and described this development as “very traumatic” for the students and their families. The court underlined the need to be accountable for errors affecting thousands of candidates.

“The real problem will not end until there is real accountability. It will not be responsible for this or that aspect; it will be effective when we know which individual bears the responsibility. It will be difficult unless you identify specific duty bearers,” Justice Narasimha observed.

The bench had also directed the Union government and NTA to record the measures taken to prevent recurrence of such incidents.