NEET Retest tomorrow: 1563 Candidates to Appear, NTA, Govt Officials to Remain Present
New Delhi: Amid the paper leak and grace marks controversies in the National Eligibility-and-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 Examination, the NEET retest for 1,563 candidates will be held on Sunday i.e. on June 23, 2024, at seven centres.
Commenting on the matter, a senior official of the National Testing Agency (NTA), the authority in charge of conducting the NEET UG examination, informed PTI that NTA and Union Education Ministry officials will be present at the examination centres during the retest.
The retest for the medical entrance exam is being conducted after the agency withdrew grace marks awarded to students who were compensated for loss of time due to delay in start of examination at six centres in Meghalaya, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Chandigarh.
Six students scored perfect 720 marks along with 61 others leading to allegations of inflation of marks. Among the seven centres where the retest will be held, only one centre is old while the six other centres are new.
"While all other examination centres have changed, the one in Chandigarh, where only two candidates will appear, will remain the same," said the senior NTA official.
"Besides, officials from the agency and the Union education ministry will also be present at these centres. The step has been taken to ensure smooth conduct of the re-exam," the official added.
The re-conducted of the exam was announced following allegations of irregularities in NEET-UG, including paper leaks. This year's National Eligibility-and-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 Examination was mired in controversies after the allegations of paper leak came into light. Around 13 people, including four examinees and their family members, were arrested in Bihar for their alleged involvement in the paper leak of the NEET-UG exam. Patna police sources had previously claimed that the NEET-UG question papers along with their answers were provided to around 20 aspirants a day before the date of the exam i.e. May 5, 2024.
Then, the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police, which took over the investigation, revealed that the brokers involved in the NEET paper leak scam took between Rs 30 lakh to Rs 50 lakh from each of the medical aspirants in exchange for giving them the question paper of the NEET UG 2024 question paper ahead of the examination.
Multiple pleas have been filed before the High Courts and the Supreme Court seeking an investigation into the alleged paper leak scam. Some of the pleas demanded the scrapping of the NEET UG 2024 exam and holding a retest.
The results of the NEET-UG 2024 exam also shocked many as 67 candidates secured the All India Rank 1. Some of the candidates scored 718 or 719 marks, which seems impossible considering the marking scheme of the NEET-UG exam.
Earlier, the NTA had tried to justify the results by saying that several candidates were awarded grace marks to compensate for the loss of time during the exam. However, NTA's grace marks policy was also challenged before the Supreme Court and later the Agency along with the Union Government informed the Supreme Court of their decision of withdrawing grace marks awarded to 1563 candidates and provide them with an option of appearing in a retest. It was decided that either these candidates would be allowed to retain their original marks, without the grace marks or appear in the retest on 23rd June, 2024.
Meanwhile, the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had on Thursday ruled out cancellation of NEET for now saying cannot jeopardise careers of lakhs of students who cleared the exam rightfully because of isolated incidents of malpractices.
