Supreme Court dismisses petition challenging the decision to cancel UGC-NET and allows re-test on August 21

Today (August 12, 2024), the Supreme Court (SC) of India dismissed a petition challenging the decision of the authorities to cancel the UGC-NET (University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test) exam held on June 18, 2024. The petition also challenged the decision to hold a re-examination for the UGC-NET exam. While dismissing the petition, the bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra noted that the exam had been already re-scheduled for August 21; therefore, the court’s interference would result in uncertainty and chaos. The SC remarked, “Exam was held on June 18 and the exam was cancelled on June 19. The exam is now scheduled on August 21 and plea challenges the cancellation of the exam and now 2 months have elapsed. Entertaining the plea at the present stage would only add to uncertainty and add to utter chaos. Devashish Bharuka says 9 lakh will appear for the exam on August 21 and thus at this late stage, cancellation cannot be challenged.” CJI said, “Let there be finality, we are not in a perfect world. Let the exams happen on August 21. Let there be certainty for students.”

During the proceedings, the petitioners argued that the cancellation of the exam based on false evidence is unfair and goes against the principles of fairness in India’s constitution. It also said “The arbitrary nature of this decision reflects a lack of due diligence and disregard for the welfare of the primary stakeholders; the students. Adding to the arbitrariness of the decision is the fact that the NTA has issued new dates for the NET exam, scheduled for August-September 2024, despite the ongoing inquiry not being completed. Furthermore, it is surprising that there has been no clarification regarding which paper was leaked—which shift's paper was leaked, Shift 1 or Shift 2, whether Paper 1 (common for all candidates) was leaked or Paper 2 (specific to each subject) was leaked.” The reliefs sought by the petitioners include

• direction to the UGC to show the evidence of the alleged paper leak; 
• direction to the CBI to share what they have found so far. If the CBI finds no leak happened, the students want the original exam results to be released;
• If a leak did occur, the petitioners want to know which specific part of the exam was affected.

The petitioners also sought the constitution of a committee of experts to prevent future problems in the re-examination. It said, “This committee may be composed of retired or sitting justices, distinguished cyber law experts from esteemed institutions such as the IITs, administrative heads, and other renowned educational experts, or any other authorities deemed appropriate by this Hon'ble Court, or as per any order or direction this Hon'ble Court finds fit. This request is made because the National Testing Agency (NTA) is incapable of preventing cyber fraud or cyber-attacks. The examination paper could potentially be leaked over the dark web again, and the NTA may once again be unable to prevent it. Consequently, the resources and efforts of lakhs of students could be wasted again.” After hearing the matter, the SC bench dismissed the petition against the decision to hold the UGC-NET Re-test on August 21, 2024.