NEET-UG 2024: Grace marks awarded to 1,563 candidates will be cancelled, Centre tells SC

Members of various student organisations stage a protest against the alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG 2024 entrance exam result, in New Delhi, Monday, June 10, 2024. Photo: PTI.

New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that a decision has been taken to cancel the grace marks awarded to 1,563 candidates in connection with the NEET-UG 2024 controversy. The Centre further stated these candidates will be informed of their actual scores (without the grace marks) and be given the option to appear for a re-test. For those who do not wish to take the test again, their scores based on the exam held on May 5 will be taken into account.

Advocate Kanu Agarwal, representing the Union Government, told a vacation bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, that the decision was taken by the panel constituted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on June 12 to "allay the fears of the students". Agarwal stated that the panel was of the view that the award of compensatory marks to 1,563 students on the grounds of loss of time resulted in a "skewed situation" because the grace marks had to be limited only to the unattempted questions. After examining all aspects, the committee concluded that it would be appropriate to recommend the cancellation of the scorecards of the 1,563 students and that they will be informed of their actual marks (without grace marks), Live Law reported.

The court also recorded the submission of Senior Advocate Naresh Kaushik, for the NTA, that the re-test will be notified today itself and will be likely held on June 23. The results of the re-test will be published before June 30 so that the counselling scheduled on July 6 can start.

Recording the stand of the Centre and the NTA, the court disposed of one petition which challenged the grant of grace marks. The court also issued notice on another petition which alleged paper-leak of the exam and tagged it with similar petitions which were posted on June 8.

Briefly stated, the court was dealing with three petitions filed challenging the NEET-UG, 2024 results for widespread irregularities and raising suspicions with regard to the grant of grace marks in the test by the National Testing Agency to over 1,500 candidates on the ground of "loss of time".

One of the petitions was filed by Physics Wallah CEO Alakh Pandey, who claimed that the NTA's decision to award grace marks was "arbitrary". Reportedly, Pandey collected representations from about 20,000 students, showing that about 70-80 marks were randomly awarded as grace marks to at least 1,500 students. The court closed the issue of grace marks in this petition but kept it pending to consider the other grievances.

The second petition was filed by SIO members Abdullah Mohammed Faiz and Dr Shaik Roshan Mohiddin, seeking recall of the NEET-UG 2024 results and conduct of a fresh exam. The petitioners alleged arbitrariness in the grant of grace marks, pointing out that marks as high as 718 & 719 out of 720 (secured by several students) were “statistically impossible”. It was claimed that NTA's grant of grace marks was a malafide exercise to give “backdoor entry” to certain students, instead of compensation for "lost time". The petitioners also raised suspicions regarding the fact that 67 students from one particular centre obtained full 720 marks. Notice was issued on this petition today.

The third petition was filed by NEET candidate Jaripiti Kartheek, challenging the award of grace marks as compensation for alleged loss of time during the exam. He contended that the “normalization formula” to award grace marks at best could extend only to the number of questions that may be left unanswered in proportion to the loss of time, given that each question has equal mark weightage; therefore equal time distribution to answer each question can be assumed. This petition was disposed of today.

Notably, on June 11, the Supreme Court issued notice on another petition filed before the declaration of the NEET-UG results (on June 4), seeking cancellation of the NEET-UG 2024 test over an alleged paper leak. Observing that the sanctity of the exam had been affected, the court sought a response from the NTA on the allegations of paper leak by July 8. However, it turned down the prayer to stay the counselling process.

Previously, on June 8, the NTA and Union Education Ministry announced the formation of a four-member committee to review the results of over 1,500 candidates who were awarded “grace marks” to compensate for the “loss of time” suffered while appearing for the NEET-UG 2024 exam.
(With Live Law inputs)

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