NEET 2024 Results Controversy: Delhi HC seeks response from NTA on plea challenging answer key
Delhi High Court
New Delhi: Considering a petition filed by an NEET 2024 candidate raising grievance regarding a question that had two correct answers in the answer key, the Delhi High Court sought the National Testing Agency's (NTA) stand.
According to PTI report, a vacation bench of Justice D K Sharma asked the NTA's counsel to seek instructions on the petition, which has prayed that equal marks should be awarded to those who did not attempt the question as has been done for those who attempted either of the two correct answers.
The petition has said the principle of fairness in a competitive examination mandates that all candidates should be evaluated on an equal footing and alleged that the authorities compromised the fairness by awarding marks to two correct options when the instructions had clearly indicated that only one option was correct.
In order to avoid a negative impact on her score, the 17-year-old petitioner chose not to attempt the question and scored 633 out of 720 marks, with a total percentile of around 98 and an all-India rank close to 44,700 in the entrance examination, the plea has said.
The petitioner has said a single mark can significantly alter her all-India rank and therefore, sought a direction to the NTA to correct and re-publish the NEET-UG 2024 results, ranks and percentiles based on the revised marks.
"On 03.06.2024, the respondent published the final answer key. It was observed that for question no. 29 of Test Booklet Code R5, both options 2 and 4 were considered correct, contrary to the instructions that stated only one option could be correct," the petition has said, quotes PTI.
"Not awarding marks in the case of a wrong question and forcing candidates to mark one, in the case of a question having two correct answers, is antithetical to the instruction that only one answer shall be right. It is submitted that it is extremely arbitrary for the respondent to expect candidates to attempt a wrong question, when there is negative marking and each mark can make a difference of hundreds of ranks, if not thousands," it has added.
The plea has further said the results declared by the authorities were arbitrary and based on unfair grace marks given to various candidates, without the application of mind.
"After the publication of the final result, it was identified that 67 candidates achieved a perfect score (720/720). However, trends prior to 2024 present a significantly different picture," the plea has said.
The matter would be heard next week.
In addition, Calcutta High Court has also ordered the National Testing Agency (NTA) to file an affidavit within 10 days in response to a plea alleging various irregularities in NEET results.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that intensifying the protests against the alleged irregularities in National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate- NEET 2024 exam results, the aspirants in Kanpur were seen recently raising slogans against the National Testing Agency (NTA), the agency in charge of conducting the MBBS entrance test. Moreover in Kakadev, Kanpur, hundreds of medical aspirants were seen rallying on the streets. Aspirants were gathering in front of coaching institutes expressing their demands for Re-NEET and CBI probe into the matter.
NEET Paper Leak Scam:
This year, the exam was mired in controversies after a paper leak scam was revealed in Bihar. Around 13 people, including four examinees and their family members were arrested in Bihar for their alleged involvement in the paper leak of 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 of giving them the question paper of the NEET UG 2024 question paper ahead of the examination.
Plea in HC and Supreme Court:
Addressing the issues, PILs were filed before the Supreme Court and the Patna High Court, seeking a fresh exam and a CBI probe into the issue. In the recent plea filed before the Supreme Court, the candidates raised the issue of paper leak and the sanctity of the test while seeking a direction for conducting a fresh examination.
It has been alleged in the plea that the NEET-UG test held on May 5 was riddled with malpractices as various instances of paper leaks came to the knowledge of the petitioners. The alleged paper leak of NEET was violative of Article 14 (right to equality) under the Constitution as it gave an undue advantage to some candidates over others who chose to attempt the examination in a fair manner.
Clarification from NTA:
Moreover, amid the social media uproar, NTA has twice issued clarifications on the matter. Soon after publishing the scorecard, NTA addressed the issue of candidates scoring 718 or 719 in the exam and informed that several candidates were awarded grace marks to compensate for their loss of time.
However, NTA's clarification could not address the doubts of the aspirants as they sought further details, asking how many candidates were given grace marks, which rules were applied to award grace marks etc. In fact, recently activist Dr. Vivek Pandey filed an RTI application before NTA seeking these details.
Then NTA issued another clarification and informed that 1563 candidates were compensated for the loss of time and the revised marks of such candidates vary from -20 to 720 marks. It further informed that out 67 candidates who received 720/720 marks, 44 were on account of the revision in one Answer Key of Physics, and 06 were on account of compensatory marks for loss of time.
Several people including doctors were also questioning why NTA declared the NEET-UG (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate) results on the date of Lok Sabha Election results i.e. on June 04, 2024, and not on June 14, as was planned earlier. NTA has also addressed this issue and the allegations of unfair means in the NEET UG 2024 examination.
