Today, Friday, July 29, is the day that the Kerala High Court is likely to hear a plea seeking a standard protocol for conducting examinations across the country. This is in light of the recent incident in the state, where, at a NEET (National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test) exam centre, female candidates were made to remove part of their undergarments in order to appear for the test.

The public interest litigation seeks the formulation of a standard protocol for exams across India and direction to the National Testing Agency (NTA) to permit the affected female candidates to re-appear for the exam. The reason that was cited was that because of the "traumatic" situation they had been put through, it must have been hard for them to focus on their exam.

The plea has also sought free counselling for the affected students as well as compensation for the "trauma" and "mental agony" suffered by them.

After a parent of one of the students who was frisked lodged a complaint with the police, seven persons were arrested on July 17. Of these seven, five were women and two were men, one was a NEET observer and the other was an exam coordinator.

Three of the arrested women worked for an agency hired by the NTA and the remaining were employed by the private educational institute at Ayur, where the incident took place. All seven were released on bail by a lower court last week.

Meanwhile, the NTA has formed a fact-finding committee to visit Kollam.

The PIL has contended that this is not the first time such an incident has happened in the name of exams and the reason was the lack of a common protocol or system to conduct exams. The plea has also claimed that physical or body searches just before the exams affect the student's memory retention.