New Delhi: In a significant development, the Centre has announced that the scorecards of 1,563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates will be nullified following the discovery of a flawed question that led to the awarding of grace marks. The affected students have been given the option to retake the examination on June 23, with results slated for release on June 30.
This decision comes in the wake of serious allegations pointing to widespread irregularities and biased grading practices in the national medical entrance examination.
Candidates who choose not to participate in the retest will have their previous scores stand, excluding the disputed grace marks.
During a series of meetings from June 10 to 12, a special committee convened to delve into the allegations. The Centre informed the Supreme Court that, acting on the committee’s advice, the scorecards in question would be invalidated, necessitating a re-examination for the implicated students.
The Supreme Court has upheld its stance against disrupting the ongoing counseling process for NEET-UG 2024, ensuring that it will continue uninterrupted. “Counselling will proceed as scheduled, and there will be no interruption. If the exam continues, everything else will proceed as well, so there is no cause for concern,” the apex court declared.
The counseling sessions for entry into MBBS, BDS, and other related courses are set to commence on July 6, as per the Centre’s schedule.
Approximately 24 lakh hopefuls sat for the NEET-UG 2024, an intensely competitive gateway to undergraduate medical programs, administered by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 5. Although the results were initially expected on June 14, they were unexpectedly released ten days earlier, on June 4, presumably due to an expedited evaluation process.
However, the revelation of a potential question paper leak coupled with the allocation of grace marks to over 1,500 candidates sparked a wave of protests and legal challenges across seven High Courts and the Supreme Court.
A significant protest erupted in Delhi on June 10, with demonstrators demanding a thorough investigation and highlighting concerns over 67 students allegedly sharing the top rank due to the grace marks.
Petitioners from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have questioned the rationale behind the grace marks, pointing to “statistically impossible” scores, such as several students achieving the perfect score of 720 out of 720.
The petitions also highlighted that 67 students from a single coaching center managed to secure perfect scores. They further contested a provisional answer key released by the NTA, which over 13,000 students challenged, arguing that it indicated an incorrect answer.
The petitions underscored the grave implications of dishonest practices in medical examinations, stating, “This field requires a profound grasp of scientific and medical knowledge… cheating or resorting to unfair means to pass an exam can result in incompetence and pose a threat to patient safety.”
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Centre and the NTA concerning petitions that call for the annulment of the examination results.
“It is not that simple… that because you have conducted it (the exam), it is beyond reproach,” the court remarked to the NTA, “The integrity of the examination has been compromised… we require answers.”
The Centre informed the top court that a committee had been established to reassess the results of the 1,563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates who were granted ‘grace marks’ due to time lost during the examination. The committee resolved to cancel the scorecards of these candidates, who are now presented with the opportunity to sit for a re-examination.
The Supreme Court has scheduled all related petitions, including those demanding the cancellation of NEET-UG 2024 due to the allegations, for consideration on July 8.
