The Supreme Court will hear three petitions today calling for the cancellation of NEET UG 2024 and the organization of a retest due to claims of irregularities in the awarding of grace marks. Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta will preside over the vacation bench handling these petitions. The petitioners are also seeking a halt to the counselling process.
On the Supreme Court’s hearing on the NEET-UG 2024 exam, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan says “There is no corruption. In connection with the NEET examination, 24 lakh students appear in the examination. A hearing in the Supreme Court is underway today and this issue is regarding around 1,500 students. Govt is ready to give answers to the Court. This specific issue is being taken into consideration and a committee of academicians has been formed. The Govt will present this in front of the Court…NTA conducts 3 major examinations that is NEET, JEE and CUET successfully in the country…We will take action against the people responsible…”
Among the petitions is one filed by Alakh Pandey, the founder of Physics Wallah, who argued that the NTA’s decision to give grace marks was “arbitrary”. Pandey gathered representations from about 20,000 students, indicating that 70-80 marks were awarded as grace marks to at least 1,500 students.
Alakh Pandey’s petition contests the alleged random awarding of grace marks by the National Testing Agency (NTA) to over 1,500 candidates.
Pandey says, “Today, NTA accepted in front of the Supreme Court that the grace marks given to the students were wrong and they agree that this created dissatisfaction among the students and they agreed that they will remove the grace marks…Re-examination of those 1,563 students who got grace marks will be done on 23rd June or the original score without grace marks would be accepted by the students. NTA agreed in front of the SC that the grace marks they awarded were wrong. The question is if NTA has other discrepancies that we are unaware of. So, there is a trust issue with NTA…The issue of paper leak is open and hearing on that will continue…”
The second petition, submitted by SIO members Abdullah Mohammed Faiz and Dr. Shaik Roshan Mohiddin, seeks to annul the NEET-UG 2024 results and conduct a new exam. The petitioners allege arbitrariness in the distribution of grace marks, noting that scores as high as 718 and 719 out of 720, achieved by several students, were “statistically impossible.” They claim the NTA’s grace marks were a malafide effort to create “backdoor entry” for certain students, rather than compensating for “lost time.” Additionally, they raised concerns about 67 students from one particular center scoring a perfect 720 marks.
In their petition, they also request a suspension of the counselling for NEET-UG 2024 admissions until an investigation into claims of a paper leak is completed. They further call for the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to examine the alleged malpractices in the exam’s conduct.
The third petition was filed by NEET candidate Jaripiti Kartheek, who challenged the awarding of grace marks as compensation for the purported loss of time during the exam. He contended that the “normalization formula” for grace marks should only apply to the number of questions left unanswered in proportion to the lost time, considering that each question carries equal weight and assumes equal time for answering.
On Wednesday, the National Testing Agency (NTA) informed the Delhi High Court that it intends to transfer all matters related to the alleged irregularities in the NEET UG 2024 results to the Supreme Court.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the Delhi High Court bench, led by Justice Neena Bansal Krishna, that the NTA will file a transfer petition before the Supreme Court to consolidate and schedule all related cases for a joint hearing.
Mehta mentioned that following the NEET-UG exam results, numerous petitions have been filed across various High Courts in the country. To ensure consistency and prevent conflicting judgments, the NTA will request the Supreme Court to hear all such matters together.
The NTA conducted the NEET examination on May 5 across 4,750 centers, with about 24 lakh candidates taking the test. Although the results were initially expected on June 14, they were released earlier on June 4, as the evaluation of the answer sheets was completed ahead of schedule. Allegations of a question paper leak and the awarding of grace marks to over 1,500 medical aspirants have led to protests and the filing of cases in high courts as well as the Supreme Court.
