Madras HC Directs CBSE To Accept NEET Registration Fee Through RTGS Or DD From 38 Students [Read Order]

The High Court of Madras recently directed the Central Board of Secondary Education to accept the fees from 38 medical aspirants, who had claimed that the payment of fees for their NEET registration could not be processed as they did not receive the One Time Password (OTP) to their respective registered mobile numbers within time.

Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana directed the CBSE to accept the fees from the Petitioners through RTGS, demand draft, or any other means. CBSE was also directed to inform all petitioners, individually, the last date for such remittance.

“The respondent, who is a Board for promoting education across the country, though may have difficulties in handling the situation in terms of feasibility to relax the rules and open the online again, can consider the plea of these aspiring students in at least accepting their fee remittance to complete the application form which would enable them to sit for the examination,” the Court observed.

Further, while lauding the initiative of conducting the examination online, the Court took note of the need to improve the infrastructure, in order to support such proposals. It therefore observed, “When the respondent says that there was overwhelming response of 45% more candidates than earlier taking up the examination, namely, 11.35 Lakhs and above, the slowest internet connectivity speed within a given time does not sit well. If a better way to be found out to fix the problem, the infrastructure requirements have to be improved. Secondly, the role of the Telecom Companies in this regard also play a vital role. The Nation, as such, has to gear up for the roll out of better version to suit the future needs.”

The Court thereafter attributed the failure to make payment to the infrastructural deficiencies, and observed, “However, the better connectivity has to be addressed or provisions ought to have been made for an alternate method for the situation like the present cases. Admittedly, a group of students have gone to the same internet centre to make their application form online. Though they were successful till the stage of applying and getting it registered, they were unsuccessful in completing the procedure by paying the required fees. These candidates are from different pockets of the districts in Tamil Nadu. The low internet speed and power outage are the perennial problems faced even in the Metropolitan Cities. Therefore, no malafides can be imputed to these candidates who could not remit the fees online in the absence of any alternate mode.” In the light of such findings, it directed the CBSE to permit the students to complete their applications, and appear for the examination scheduled for May 7.

Read the Order here.