Amid concerns about the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission into medical colleges, the Supreme Court today came down heavily on the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the nationwide exam for medical college aspirants.

“If there’s even 0.001% negligence on anyone’s part, it should be thoroughly dealt with,” the Supreme Court said.

The Supreme Court – while hearing a batch of petitions over the alleged irregularities in the exam – said it expects a “timely action” from the NTA and that the agency must ensure that all candidates are treated fairly.

“As an agency which is conducting the examination, you must act fair. If there is a mistake, say yes, this is a mistake, and this is the action we are going to take. At least that inspires confidence in your performance,” a bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice SVN Bhatti told the NTA.

The Supreme Court also observed that the agency shouldn’t forget the efforts students put in to prepare for one of the toughest entrance exams in the country

“Imagine a person who has played fraud on the system becomes a doctor, he is more deleterious to the society. Children study hard to get through NEET” it added.

“The next hearing in the case will be held on July 8.

Last week, the NTA told the Supreme Court that grace marks given to 1,563 candidates in the NEET-UG exam would be scrapped and the candidates had the option of taking the exam again on June 23. The results of the re-test will be declared before June 30, the top court was told.

If any of these candidates chose to not take the re-test, their earlier score would be reinstated without the extra marks.

Results for the medical entrance examination, which was taken by 24 lakh students on May 5, were declared on June 4. Allegations of an exam paper leak soon surfaced. As many as 67 students got a perfect score of 720/720.

Grace marks were given to several students allegedly to compensate for loss of time at the exam centre.

Many student organisations have protested over the alleged NEET irregularities, including wrong question papers being distributed, Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets being torn, or delays in the distribution of the sheets.