NEET plea: Calcutta HC asks Salt Lake girl to move Supreme Court

KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Friday asked a UG-NEET candidate to approach the Supreme Court to appear in the re-examination on Sunday. The HC said that as there was an existing order of the Supreme Court, it would not entertain the plea of the petitioner, Fiona Majumdar, an undergraduate student from Salt Lake.
The Supreme Court had already issued instructions for re-examination.In this situation, the high court would not issue any fresh directive, the court said. So the petitioner can approach the Supreme Court on Saturday. As per the Supreme Court's order, a re-examination is being conducted on Sunday for 1,563 candidates, who received grace marks.
Majumdar, who appeared for UG-NEET from a centre in Panihati, had alleged that she was given a torn OMR sheet for the exam. When she had requested the authorities to replace it, she had to reportedly wait for one and a half hours for instructions. Eventually, the petitioner had to complete the examination in a much shorter span of time than scheduled and that led to a low rank. Majumdar had sent a request for a re-examination but when the authorities concerned did not grant it, the candidate approached the high court.
The counsel for National Testing Authority, which conducted the all-India entrance exam, claimed that the OMR sheet was scanned and provided. The NTA counsel said, "A torn OMR sheet was not given. The top part was damaged. When the candidate complained, she was asked to take the exam on that OMR sheet. A few minutes were wasted."
But Advocate Kollol Basu, who appeared for Majumdar, said Justice Joy Sengupta had found that the petitioner's time was wasted at the exam centre, which caused her harm. Justice Sengupta said the candidate's OMR sheet, along with the CCTV footage of the hall, be preserved for a year, Basu said.