No interim relief for MBBS aspirant declared ghost in NEET, Gujarat HC seeks reply from NTA over scorecards

Justice Nikhil Kariel further clarified that even if the petitioner’s case is genuine, it is not possible for her to be accommodated in the current academic year. However, if the student is proven right in the end, she will be granted admission to MBBS on the basis of her 2023 NEET score.

The issue pertains to a student vying for an MBBS seat, who moved the Gujarat High Court after the admission committee told her that she was a “ghost student”, and no one had taken the exam on the application number cited on her scorecard.

The candidate submitted that she took the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate courses for the year 2023 and scored well enough to stand a chance for a medical seat and applied to the Admission Committee for Professional Undergraduate Medical Educational Courses (ACPUGMEC). She claimed that her NEET (UG) result data established her score as 648. Furthermore, as counselling was to take place, she submitted her documents and got them verified successfully.

However, her candidature faced a shocking setback when the admission committee contacted her, stating that her application could not be considered as no student had taken the NEET using the application number she provided. According to them, she was a 'ghost' student, and her scorecard did not exist in their records.

In her petition, the student said she called NTA thrice, which conducts the NEET. Initially, NTA confirmed the authenticity of her scorecard, but later changed their stance during the second conversation, declaring her scorecard invalid. Finally, during the third call, she was informed that the data for the application number she cited was missing. The student alleged that her scorecard had been eliminated and that she was termed a ghost student.

When the HC inquired with NTA, the agency submitted that the documents the student was basing her case on were forged and no student had taken the test on the application number cited. Further, the NTA and the admission committee for professional undergraduate medical educational courses rubbished her claims that she was at the 99th percentile. They submitted that her scorecard revealed that she had secured only 98 marks and a percentile score of 36.29. She attempted 41 questions correctly and gave wrong answers to 66 questions.

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Examining the documents that were presented from both sides to prove their claims, the Court stated that these are “very queer and peculiar circumstances”. The judge even commented, “...the parents should understand that they will be involved. Nowadays, children are much more aware of what they are walking into, much more aware than their parents. But still…”

The NTA, admission committee and the court explained to the student and her father that pursuing the litigation may end up in them facing prosecution and the student could be debarred if the documents supplied were found to have been falsified.

However, after consultation with the student’s father, the lawyer informed the court that they will continue with the litigation and the father stood by the scorecard which showed that his daughter had scored 648 marks in NEET.

Subsequently, noting that the “Petitioners are fully conscious of the negative consequences if their documents are not found to be genuine,” the Court issued notices to the NTA and the admission committee, seeking their replies on the issue.

Meanwhile, it refused to grant any interim relief to the student by allowing her to participate in the counselling process for MBBS that begins later this week.

The judge also clarified that even if the petitioner’s case is genuine, it is not possible for her to be accommodated in the current academic year. Citing a Supreme Court’s judgment, the court added that if the student is proven right in the end, she will be granted admission to MBBS on the basis of her 2023 NEET score.

According to a recent media report in TOI, the further hearing of the case has been scheduled for August 23.