New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that it has decided to invalidate the scorecards of 1,563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates who were given grace marks. This decision comes in response to allegations of unfair means during the examination process. The Centre also said that an option will be given to only these students to take re-test on June 23. For candidates opting out of the re-examination, results will be recalculated based on their original scores without grace marks.
The results will be declared prior to June 30 so that counselling which is set to begin on July 6 stays unaffected.
The Centre issued a statement to the court, announcing that it will offer these 1,563 students the opportunity to participate in a re-test. This action aims to uphold fairness and integrity in the examination process.
Talking to news agency ANI, advocate Shwetank said, "We filed PIL regarding the NEET Exam issue and our main issue was regarding the paper leak and other malpractices by the NTA. The Court has directed that a re-examination will be conducted on 23rd June."
Declaring dissatisfaction with the SC’s decision, CEO of Physics Wallah, Alakh Pandey, who is a key petitioner in the matter, said that this marks the first step towards justice, as today the NTA admitted to the Supreme Court that awarding grace marks to students was a mistake.
“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," reported ANI quoting Pandey.
The Centre explained how they handled the problem. They convened a committee on June 10th, 11th, and 12th to look into the accusations. After reviewing the committee's suggestions, they decided to cancel the scores of the students involved and arrange for them to retake the exam.
In another development, the Supreme Court reiterated that it will not stay the counselling of NEET-UG, 2024. Reported ANI quoting the apex court that, “Counselling will go on and we will not stop it. If the exam goes then everything goes in totality so nothing to fear.”
