Re-NEET likely on June 23rd for 1563 affected Candidates, Results by June 30th: NTA informs Supreme Court
New Delhi: The Union Government and the National Testing Agency (NTA) informed the Supreme Court today that they will cancel and withdraw the results of the 1563 candidates prepared based on the compensatory marks awarded to them by NTA for their loss of time during the exam.
These affected candidates will be notified about their actual scores obtained in the NEET UG 2024 exam held on 05.05.2024 and they will be given a choice of either retaining the original marks (without the compensatory marks) or appearing in a re-exam conducted by NTA.
The counsels for the Centre Government and the NTA informed the Apex Court bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta that NTA will very likely notify about the re-test for these 1563 affected candidates today i.e. on 13th June 2024. Moreover, the re-exam for the affected candidates will likely be held on June 23rd and the results of those candidates who will appear in the re-exam will be published by 30th of June, 2024, so that the counselling for NEET UG 2024 can commence from July 6th, 2024.
Considering these submissions, the Apex Court bench disposed of the plea filed challenging the NTA's decision to grant grace marks to candidates to compensate for loss of time.
For the other matter concerning the use of unfair means in the NEET UG 2024 examination, the Apex Court has listed 8th July as the date of the next hearing.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that multiple pleas were filed before the Supreme Court regarding the NEET-UG 2024 exams. Three such pleas were listed for hearing before the Supreme Court today.
One of these pleas concerned the allegations of using unfair means in the NEET UG 2024 examination, while in the other plea, objections were raised against the NTA's policy of granting grace marks to 1563 candidates.
Union Government's Recommendations on the Grace Marks Issue:
When the issue of grace marks came up for the consideration of the Supreme Court, the counsel for Union of India Mr. Agarwal submitted that a meeting was held on Wednesday i.e. on 12th June by the committee set up by NTA.
The Committee decided, as submitted by the Government counsel, "The committee is of the view that the loss of time ascertained by the GRC (grievance redressal committee) and the use of the methodology to obtain compensatory marks resulted in a skewed situation and produced a strange outcome of results. The skewed situation seems to have occurred as GRC did not take into account the compensation for the loss of time had to be limited to a number of unattempted questions only. In fact the outcome of the aforesaid process created a fallout whereby it caused serious ... resentment among the students community. The process resulted in creation of a distinct class of candidates who gained an advantage and it appears to be disproportionate as well as unfair for the rest of the candidates. After examining all the aspects of the situation totality, this committee concludes that the most appropriate and reasonable solution to the issue would be subjecting those 1563 candidates to a retest at the earliest possible."
Accordingly, the NTA committee recommended the following measures:
1. Scorecards of all affected 1563 candidates issued on 04.06.2024 stand cancelled and thus withdrawn. The affected 1563 candidates were informed of their actual score without compensation (that is the normalisation) through their registered email IDs.
2. A re-examination will be conducted for the affected candidates. The directions of re-examination passed by individual cases will also be included by the NTA.
3. The results of those affected candidates who do not wish to appear for re-examination will be declared based on their actual marks, without compensation, obtained in the examination conducted on 05.05.2024. The marks obtained by the candidates who will appear in the re-test will be considered in their marks based on 05.05.2024 will be discarded.
"They [the 1563 affected candidates) will have a choice," informed the counsel for the Union Government.
However objecting to this, the counsel for the petitioners in one of the case submitted that this suggestion may go against the 2018 Supreme Court in the CLAT matter, wherein the window was open to all of the affected parties.
Responding to this, the bench observed, "You are having a grievance with the award of the compensatory marks, they are saying that they are doing away with that. Your problem is over."
Advocate Balaji, who appeared on behalf of the candidates in another plea said that the suggestion was "fairly reasonable". When he expressed his concern that conducting a re-exam might be opening pandora box as every candidate securing lesser marks may choose to appear in a re-test, the bench clarified that this option is limited only to the 1563 candidates.
Following this, the counsel for the petitioners in one of the case raised the concern that the policy is only for the 1563 candidates and there might be other candidates also who did not approach the Court. He urged the Court to keep the option open for those candidates also, who could not approach the court but faced similar issues.
The bench denied the suggestion and noted that the exam was held on 5th May and today 13th June. So, more than one month has passed and no one has come forward.
Supreme Court's Observations:
Considering the submissions by the counsels for petitioners, the counsel for the Union, and Mr. Naresh Kaushik, learning counsel appearing for the National Testing Agency, the Supreme Court bench ordered,
"The petitioner who had appeared for NEET-UG 2024 has raised a grievance regarding the grant of compensatory marks to 1563 candidates using the normalisation formula where, at the examination centres, the candidates who had appeared were not allowed 3 hours 20 minutes of time admissible to them, but were permitted to take their examination for lesser time. The compensatory marks have been awarded on the basis of the recommendation of a Committee [Grievance Redressal Committee] relying upon a judgment of this Court in the case of Disha Panchal vs.Union of India and others."
"This award of compensatory marks was represented and some petitions were also filed challenging such award of such marks. The National Testing Agency thereafter constituted another committee to reconsider the issue and gave its recommendation on the award of compensatory marks. The subsequent committee held meetings on 10, 11 and 12th June 2024 and after deliberations has made recommendations which have been placed before us by Mr. Agarwal for the counsel for Union of India," noted the bench.
"According to the recommendations, it has been suggested that the scorecards of the affected 1563 candidates issued on June 4, 2024 will stand cancelled and withdrawn. These affected 1563 candidates will be informed of their actual scores without compensatory marks. Further, re-examination will be conducted for the affected 1563 candidates. The results of these affected candidates who do not wish to appear for the re-examination will be declared based on their actual marks without compensation obtained by them in the examination held on May 5, 2024 and the marks obtained by the candidates who will appear in the retest will be considered and their marks based on the examination held on 05.05.2024 will be discarded," it further mentioned in the order.
The rest of the issues concerning the use of unfair means in the examination will be considered by the Apex Court on 8th July, 2024.
