SC orders NEET results be declared, CBSE to announce them in 2 weeks

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) to proceed with the declaration of NEET (National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test) 2017 results and begin the admission process for the MBBS and BDS courses.

The CBSE will now declare by June 26 the result of the exam conducted for admission to the country’s medical and dental colleges, bringing relief to more than a million students.

The Supreme Court stayed a Madras HC order that restrained the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) from declaring the result of the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) 2017.

“After the court’s go-ahead, we have started the process of preparing the result... We will declare the results within two weeks,” a CBSE official said.

The board would have to put online more than a million answer sheets and the process would take a few days but the result would be out not later than June 26, the official, who didn’t wish to be identified, said.

A vacation bench of Justice Prafulla C Pant and Justice Deepak Gupta accepted the CBSE’s argument that if the stay was not vacated, college schedules would be thrown out of gear. “The HC shouldn’t have easily and liberally interfered with the schedule,” the bench said of the May 24 order.

The top court said the result, counselling and admissions would be conditional to its decision on matters pending before it, as it asked high courts not to entertain petitions relating to NEET.

The CBSE had on June 9 sought an immediate stay on the Madras HC’s interim order that came on a bunch of pleas that alleged the question paper was not uniform and there was a vast difference between the ones in English and in Tamil. The petitioners demanded the test, which was held on May 7, be conducted afresh with “uniform question papers”.