New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday strongly criticised the National Testing Agency (NTA) over recurring controversies surrounding the NEET examination, observing that the agency appeared to have “not learnt lessons” despite facing similar allegations in the past. A bench comprising Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe sought responses from the Centre, the NTA and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on petitions demanding the replacement of the testing body with a more secure and autonomous mechanism for conducting the nationwide medical entrance examination.

During the hearing, the apex court directed the NTA to file an affidavit by Thursday detailing the steps taken to implement recommendations made by a court-appointed committee after the 2024 NEET paper leak controversy. The bench noted that the issue had already reached the Supreme Court earlier and stressed that reforms suggested by the monitoring committee were accepted for implementation. The court also ordered that copies of the petitions be served to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and directed all similar pleas to be tagged together for further hearing.

The petition filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) alleged that repeated paper leaks amounted to a direct attack on the future and fundamental rights of over 22.7 lakh NEET-UG aspirants across the country. The organisation demanded either restructuring or complete replacement of the NTA and sought the formation of a high-powered monitoring committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, along with cybersecurity and forensic experts, to supervise future examinations. The NEET-UG exam conducted on May 3 was cancelled on May 12 after allegations of a paper leak surfaced, with the matter currently under investigation by the CBI.