The Bombay High Court has granted an 18-year-old girl permission to reappear for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) UG 2023 after she was unable to complete the test paper for the first time due to a broken wrist. The exam is being held for the second time for students from strife-torn Manipur.
A vacation bench of Justices Manish Pitale and Neela Gokhale heard a petition filed by Dhanashree Jagatap seeking permission to repeat for the exam.
According to Jagatap, she arrived at the NEET-UG test centre on 7 May but fell on the ground due to a rush in the wait, resulting in a dislocation of her right wrist joint.
She was taken to a local hospital and then returned to the facility, where she was assigned a writer, according to Jagatap's petition.
However, despite the fact that the exam was scheduled to take three hours and twenty minutes, Jagatap began the exam late and was not allowed extra time to complete her paper, preventing her from attempting the final part of the Physics course, according to her petition.
In her petition to the National Testing Agency, Jagatap stated that while the NEET-UG examination is only held once a year, due to the sudden outbreak of violence in Manipur, the NEET-UG 2023 examination is being held separately for students from that state.
The re-examination for Manipur students is scheduled for June 6 in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
When the case was heard on Thursday, the Union government stated that it was willing to allow Jagatap to retake the exam on June 6, but only if she did not depend on her results from the May 7 exam.
Accepting this, the court stated that Jagatap shall be entitled to appear for the NEET-UG 2023 examination alongside Manipur students at a centre in Bengaluru, and that responsible authorities shall take suitable steps to facilitate her appearance for the said examination.
"The petitioner shall file an undertaking within a week from today that she will not rely on the attempt she made on May 7, 2023, for the NEET-UG 2023 examination," the HC added.
