Discrepancies In Evaluation, NEET Scores: Bombay HC Seeks Clarification From NTA

Several other students pointed at the similar discrepancies in the marks on their scanned OMR sheets and their final scorecard.

This came after the MBBS entrance exam for the year, that was conducted across the country on September 13 and a second phase of the exam was conducted on October 14, following which the results were declared on October 16.

Also Read: NEET 2020 Results: Check Out Analysis, Percentile Cut-Offs

A student, who scored zero marks in the NEET, 2020 has approached the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court alleging discrepancies in the test assessment system.

The court while considering her writ petition has now asked the National Testing Agency (NTA) to furnish clarification on the alleged issue.

In her petition, the candidate submitted that she was expecting at least 600 out of 720 in her entrance exam and was shocked to see her final scorecard.

Advocate Ashwin Deshpande representing the student in court contended, "After having scored 81.85% in her HSC exams, the student was expecting to score at least 600 in her NEET exam. The first problem was that the NTA never uploaded her optical marking recognition (OMR) sheet, then her result shows she has scored zero out of 720. There is a glitch in their online evaluation system."

"How can a student score zero marks when she was expecting 600 or more? NTA will have to clarify this," added Deshpande.

Deliberating the matter, the court has sought NTA to clarify whether the said student's OMR sheet was uploaded in the first place or not by the next date of hearing.

In another case, a student from Akola district in Maharashtra has also approached the NTA with a similar problem, pointing out at the discrepancies in the marks on their scanned OMR sheets and their final scorecard.

An activist who is currently helping this student approach the Bombay high court stated, "As per the provisional answer key shared by NTA in the last week of September and the scanned OMR sheet of every student that was uploaded by the NTA, this student has scored a perfect 720 out of 720. However, as per his final scorecard, he has scored a mere 212 marks which is impossible."

Several students, since, have approached the NTA with the scanned copy of their OMR sheets and their final scorecard highlighting a difference in marks.

"My OMR sheet shows two different answers to the same question in two different pages. All these points towards technical trouble in the evaluation software. The NTA will have to clarify this problem soon," one of the students told HT.

Commenting on the issue, the director-general of NTA, Vineet Joshi told the daily that prima facie, such blatant discrepancies in marks is not possible. "However, since we have received queries from some students, we are individually checking each query and trying to solve the same at the earliest," said Joshi.