The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the review plea filed by cabinet ministers of six non-BJP states demanding postponement of JEE Main and NEET 2020. The SC bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, B.R Gaval and Krishna Murari refused to entertain the review petition filed stating that there is no merit in the plea. 

The plea was filed by ministers from West Bengal (Moloy Ghatak), Maharashtra (Uday Ravindra Sawant), Jharkhand (Rameshwar Oraon), Rajasthan (Raghu Sharma), Punjab (B S Sidhu), and Chattisgarh (Amarjeet Bhagat) last Friday. The plea was filed demanding deferment of JEE Main and NEET 2020 exams to protect 25 lakh students from serious health risk due to rising COVID-19 cases in India. 

In its judgment on August 17, 2020, the Supreme Court had negated the request to postpone the national level JEE Main and NEET 2020 examinations. However, the state governments cited that the SC failed to secure students 'right to life’ and also disregarded 'teething logistical difficulties' that will be faced while appearing for the entrances.

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JEE Main 2020 which was deferred twice earlier due to COVID-19 is now in progress. Today marks the 4th day of the exam and two more are left September 5 & 6. 

According to the students, most centers were following the COVID-19 guidelines for JEE Main 2020 and SOPs released by NTA. Although students were satisfied with the results, few of them had to shed large amounts of money to reach their centers. It was also reported that social distancing was not followed at a few exam centers.

As per the data by MHRD, 25% of the students had skipped the exam in the last 3 days of JEE Main 2020. 3,43,958 candidates attended JEE Main 2020 in the first three days. The highest attendance was recorded on day 3 with 82.14%. 

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Meanwhile, NTA has claimed to undertake representation from students unable to reach JEE Main exam centers due to transport and communication issues on any day between 1-6 September 2020. This has also increased the likelihood of postponement of JEE Advanced 2020. Read More.

NEET 2020 is also scheduled to conducted on September 13, 2020. A fresh petition has been filed by Alakh Alok Srivastava demanding postponement of the entrance. The hearing is scheduled on September 7, 2020. 

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