Supreme Court rejects appeal by 6 State Ministers against JEE, NEET

Bench finds no merit in plea to review Aug. 17 apex court order refusing to entertain students’ petition to postpone exams

A view of the Supreme Court of India. File

A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Ashok Bhushan, dismissed

a plea filed jointly by Ministers from six non-BJP-ruled States against the conduct of the JEE Mains and the NEET-UG amid the pandemic.

The Bench, also comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari, found no merit in the plea to review an apex court order on August 17 refusing to entertain a petition by students to postpone the NEET and the JEE .

“We have carefully gone through the review petitions and the connected papers. We find no merit in the review petitions and the same are accordingly dismissed”, the court said in a short order.

The court similarly dismissed the review petitions filed by Puducherry MLA R.K.R Anantharaman and N. Vinoba Bhoopathy.

The court decided the review petitions in chambers.

‘Haphazard’ plans

The Ministers had submitted that lakhs of students should not fall prey to the Centre’s “knee-jerk” and “haphazard” plans, which will prove “worse than the disease itself”.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) had notified the JEE between September 1 to 9. The NEET for medical seats are scheduled for September 13. The JEE Mains is slated to be conducted over 660 exam centres, with 9.53 lakh students taking it. The NEET will see 15.97 lakh students in 3,843 centres across the country.

Ministers Moloy Ghatak of West Bengal, Dr. Rameshwar Oraon from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh’s Amarjeet Bhagat, Maharashtra’s Uday Ravindra Samant and Raghu Sharma and Balbir Singh Sidhu from Rajasthan and Punjab respectively had moved the Supreme Court through lawyer Sunil Fernandes. The petition was filed shortly after a meeting was held among Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Chief Ministers of the six non-BJP-ruled States.

The Ministers said the months from April to September 2020 were characterised by inaction, confusion, lethargy and inertia on the government’s part. The Union government had suddenly woken up to hurriedly fix the exam dates.

“The remedy will prove to be worse than the disease itself”, the petition had said, adding that the situation was grave enough to recall or postpone the exams.