The Supreme Court on Thursday disposed of petitions challenging the award of grace marks by the National Testing Agency or NTA in the NEET-UG 2024 by accepting the Centre's recommendation to give 1,563 candidates an option of re-testing for loss of time during the examination held on May 5. 

A vacation bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was told by the counsel for the Centre and the NTA that the students, who were given grace marks, will be given an option to take the re-test. The court said it will not stay the counselling process for admissions.

They also include the petitions seeking to cancel NEET-UG, 2024, on account of anallegation of question paper leaks and other malpractices.

The NTA held the examination on May 5 across 4,750 centres, and around 24 lakh candidates took it. The results were expected to be declared on June 14 but were announced on June 4, apparently because the evaluation of the answer sheets was completed earlier.

Allegations such as the leak of question papers and the grant of grace marks to over 1,500 medical aspirants have led to protests and the filing of cases in seven high courts and the Supreme Court.