Madras HC Cancels MBBS Admission of third-year student over tampering of NEET marks

Chennai: Observing that NEET marks had been tampered by the candidate, the Madras High Court bench recently cancelled the MBBS admission of a third year student in Tuticorin Government Medical College.

However, rejecting the allegations concerning manipulation of marksheet in National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), the bench comprising Justice C V Karthikeyan observed on Friday, "I am afraid that the permission granted by the single judge to permit the petitioner to attend the counselling and consequent to which the petitioner had been allotted a medical seat in Tuticorin Government Medical College, will have to be interfered with and necessary orders will have to be passed terminating the continuance of study by the petitioner in the college."

This observation came from the HC bench while considering a plea moved by K S Manoj, who had alleged that his marksheet had been manipulated by the National Testing Agency (NTA), the authority in charge of conducting the NEET exam. It was claimed by the student that due to the manipulation of his marksheet, he had been denied admission to medical courses.

Also Read: Tamil Nadu NEET PG aspirants face trouble due to faraway test centres

While considering the matter, the HC single judge bench issued an order on January 13, 2021 and permitted the petitioner candidate to get admitted in the MBBS course. However, the single judge bench had also clarified back then that the admission of the concerned candidate was subject to the outcome of the plea.

As per the latest media report by the Times of India, the concerned petitioner candidate had alleged that he had downloaded his answer sheet twice on October 15 and October 17 from NTA website and there were disparities in the answers marked.

It was submitted by the petitioner that he had got 594 marks out of 720 in the first marksheet. However, it was modified to 248 marks when he had downloaded it the second time.

During the course of the hearing, NTA had produced the original OMR sheet before the High Court bench. Referring to this, the Court observed, "The original mark sheet itself is available. On the face of the definite assertion that only one OMR sheet was uploaded, I hold that examination of the screen shots produced by the petitioner can be resorted to only when the original mark sheet is suspected. This is not the case."

It was further observed by the court that the original mark sheet clearly established the fact that it was the only one marksheet of a single page. It contained the roll number, the questions attempted, the names of the parents of the petitioner, signatures of the petitioner and the invigilators. Referring to this, the Court opined, that none of them could be duplicated.

Dismissing the plea, the bench therefore noted, "These facts conclusively prove that there was only one OMR sheet. This had been produced before this Court. This shows that the petitioner had obtained 248 marks out of 720."

The New Indian Express adds that the HC bench has also dismissed an order of the court directing a CB-CID probe in the matter as it was observed that the former order had become non est in the eyes of the law. The CB-CID probe had been ordered by another single bench while considering the matter.

The daily adds that NTA, represented by senior counsel G Rajagopalam, had made an appeal before a division bench in this regard. The Division bhench had stayed the probe order observing that it was left to the single judge to either continue or vacate the stay order. NTA had earlier approached the Supreme Court also and it had reverted the matter back to the single judge for taking a decision regarding the allegations of manipulation of answer sheets.

Later, the report of the central forensic sciences laboratory (CFSL) in Chandigarh had ruled out any tampering of the answer sheets and the report had also mentioned that the signatures found in the exam attendance record and OMR sheet were the same.

"These facts conclusively prove that there was only one OMR sheet. This had been produced before this court. The petitioner had obtained 248 marks out of 720," observed the bench.

It was also observed by the bench that the contentions of the petitioner's counsel stretched the issues a little too far and noted that the petitioner had not been able to advance any argument for disapproving the conclusive proof of the answer sheet.

Also Read: NEET 2020 candidates accuse NTA of furnishing tampered OMR sheets