NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the National Testing Agency (NTA) to admit if any irregularities are found in the conduct of the NEET (UG) examination.

A vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and S.V.N. Bhatti remarked that even “0.001 per cent negligence” in the conduct of the NEET exam should be thoroughly dealt with and the matter should not be dealt with as adversarial litigation.

The apex court further flagged the ill consequences arising out of the situation where a candidate turns doctor after playing fraud on the system.

It added that if there is a mistake, the NTA must admit and take corrective action to maintain public confidence in the conduct of competitive exams.

In response, the NTA said that no adverse opinion should be formed based on speculation unless it files a proper reply before the court.

Granting two weeks to NTA to respond to the petition alleging various irregularities in the NEET (UG) exam, the Supreme Court ordered tagging of the plea with the pending batch of petitions, coming up for hearing on July 8.

On Sunday, two accused confessed their role in the question paper leak as per the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police.

The top court, last week, said that it would not pass any ex-parte CBI probe into the matter. However, it had asked the NTA to file its reply to the fresh petitions seeking a CBI/SIT probe into the allegation of paper leak within two weeks.