The Supreme Court on Thursday permitted the National Testing Agency to declare the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) results for admission to undergraduate medical courses across the country.

A bench comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao, Sanjiv Khanna and B R Gavai stayed the Bombay High Court's recent order asking the NTA not to declare the NEET results and conduct re-examination for two aspirants whose question papers and OMR sheets had got mixed up at a centre in Maharashtra.

"We stay the high court judgement. The National Testing Agency can announce the results," the bench said after taking note of the submissions of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who represented the NTA.

"We will decide what happens to the two students upon reopening (after Diwali vacation). In the meanwhile, we issue notice and file a counter. But we cannot hold the results of 16 lakh students," the bench said.

In an unprecedented order, the Bombay High Court on October 20 directed the NTA, set up in 2018 for conducting NEET for admission to undergraduate medical courses, to hold fresh exams for the two students and declare their results along with the main results of the test conducted on September 12.

The high court had taken note of the fact that the test booklet and OMR sheet of two medical aspirants -- Vaishanavi Bhopali and Abhishek Shivaji got mixed up at the examination centre before the start of the test and ordered that they be given a fresh opportunity to appear.

The NEET Entrance Exam was conducted on September 12, for "16,14,777 candidates, involving 3,682 centres in 202 cities, 9,548 Centre Superintendents/ Deputy Superintendents, 5,615 Observers, 2,69,378 Invigilators and 220 City Co-ordinators," the NTA said in the plea.