Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The Bombay High Court on Thursday slapped a cost of Rs 5,000 each on four NEET aspirants for filing petitions, based on incorrect information, and challenging the results declared by the National Testing Agency (NTA) earlier this month.
The petitioners — Hricha, Soham, Atharva and Rahul — were told to pay Rs 5,000 each as cost of litigation by the Division Bench comprising Justice N. B. Suryawanshi and Justice A. D. Shinde during a hearing at the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Bench of the High Court.
The High Court dismissed all the petitions, noting that the petitioners had approached it on the basis of incorrect and unsubstantiated information.
The petitions had alleged that the results declared by NTA after re-NEET held on June 21 were erroneous and that there were discrepancies in the evaluation of the petitioners’ answer sheets.
Advocate Rohit Sarvadnya, Senior Panel Counsel for the Union of India, told the court that there was no infirmity in the NTA’s results, leading to the court upholding his contention after direct verification of the original answer sheets.
He told media that considering the allegations regarding incorrect evaluation and declaration of results, the High Court directed that the original answer sheets of the concerned students be brought from Delhi in sealed packets.
“The original answer sheets were produced before the High Court and examined by the Bench. The students, their parents, and their advocates were also given an opportunity to inspect the original answer sheets,” Sarvadnya said.
After the examination of the original records, it became clear that the marks and results declared by the NTA were in accordance with the answers recorded in the original answer sheets and that there was no error or discrepancy in the results declared by the agency, he added.
Sarvadnya said that in view of the findings recorded after verification of the original answer sheets, the High Court dismissed all four petitions.
The High Court also imposed costs of Rs 5,000 on each petitioner for approaching it on the basis of incorrect and unsubstantiated information.
The orders in these matters reaffirm the importance of verifying the original examination records before making allegations regarding the correctness of results declared by an examination authority.
(IANS)
