The Supreme Court recorded the Union government’s submission on June 13 that the score cards of 1,563 candidates granted compensatory marks in the undergraduate medical entrance examination, known as NEET-UG 2024, will stand cancelled. These candidates can sit for a retest, likely to be held on June 23.
The Union government informed a Vacation Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta that these candidates will now be informed of their actual scores without the compensatory or grace marks. If they decide not to sit for the re-test, their original scores without grace marks will be treated as their final scores.
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‘Skewed situation’
The court was hearing petitions challenging the award of the grace marks to the 1,563 candidates using a “normalisation formula”, on the grounds that they were not allowed the full period of 3.2 hours to write the exam at their respective centres. The compensatory marks were awarded to these candidates on the recommendation of a committee constituted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), the body which conducts the NEET.
When the decision to grant grace marks had come under a cloud, and faced by rising public furore against the measure, the NTA had formed a subsequent committee, which had held its deliberations between June 10 and June 12.
Appearing for the Union, advocate Kanu Agrawal submitted that this committee was of the opinion that the grant of compensatory marks to 1,563 students for loss of time had led to a skewed situation. Grace marks were limited only to unattempted questions.
Re-test option
Consequently, Mr. Agrawal informed the court that a re-examination would be held for the 1,563 candidates. “The results of the affected candidates who do not wish to appear for the re-examination will be declared on their actual marks without grace marks obtained by them in the examination held on May 5, 2024,” the court recorded in its order.
For those among the 1,563 candidates who opt to take the re-examination, their actual marks in the re-test will be taken as their result, and their previous marks from the May 5 test will be discarded, the court noted.
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Appearing for the NTA, senior advocate Naresh Kaushik apprised the court that the date for the re-examination would be notified on June 13 itself. The agency said the re-test would likely be held on June 23, with the results to be declared on June 30. Care will be taken to not disturb the counselling session scheduled on July 6, the NTA added.
Paper leak allegations
The Bench disposed of the pleas on the issue of grace marks. As for the allegations of question paper leaks and other concerns, the court directed the NTA to file its response in two weeks.
Earlier, while hearing another petition filed by 10 candidates, the court had scheduled the next hearing on July 8.
One of the petitions was filed by online ed-tech platform Physics Wallah’s CEO Alakh Pandey, represented by advocate J. Sai Deepak, who claimed that the NTA’s decision to award grace marks was “arbitrary”.
