The Supreme Court on Monday came down heavily on the National Testing Agency (NTA) over the recurring controversy surrounding the NEET examination, observing that the agency appeared not to have “learnt lessons” from the earlier paper leak episode. The court sought responses from the Centre, the NTA and the CBI on petitions seeking replacement of the testing body with an autonomous and more robust mechanism for conducting the medical entrance examination.

A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe directed the NTA to file an affidavit by Thursday detailing compliance with the recommendations made by a court-appointed panel after the 2024 NEET controversy. The bench also asked that copies of the petitions be served to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and other parties involved.

"It's sad that they have not learnt their lessons. The matter travelled to this court earlier also. There was a committee, a monitoring committee which made some recommendations and they were accepted. We want NTA to file an affidavit on the steps taken for compliance of recommendations suggested by the committee,” the bench said.

The apex court issued notice on a plea filed by the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) through advocate Tanvi Dubey and ordered that all similar petitions be tagged together for hearing.

The court further directed the Centre-appointed committee headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Radhakrishnan, which was tasked with overhauling the functioning of the NTA, to place on record the steps taken in compliance with earlier directions.

In its plea, FAIMA urged the court to order the restructuring or replacement of the NTA, alleging that repeated paper leaks amounted to a “direct assault” on the fundamental rights of more than 22.7 lakh students appearing for NEET-UG.

The medical body also sought the constitution of a high-powered monitoring committee to supervise the proposed re-examination until a new testing body is formally established. It proposed that the panel be headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and include a cybersecurity expert and a forensic scientist to prevent future leaks.

The NEET-UG examination, conducted by the NTA on May 3 for admission to undergraduate medical courses, was cancelled on May 12 following allegations of a paper leak. The matter is currently under investigation by the CBI.