NEET-UG 2024: Centre, NTA cancel grace marks awarded to 1,563 candidates, re-test offered

SC was hearing plea seeking cancellation of NEET UG

The Supreme Court has accepted Centre and National Testing Agency (NTA)'s decision to cancel grace marks awarded to 1,563 NEET-UG candidates who did not get the requisite time to finish the examination, with the students now getting an option to take a re-test later this month.

The NTA submitted before the Supreme Court that these candidates can take the re-exam if they wish to, which is likely to be held on June 23 and the results are to be declared by June 30. NTA's representative told the apex court that in case candidates do not wish to take the re-exam, their score without the grace marks will be considered as final for NEET-UG.

The NTA also assured that the process of conducting the re-examination and declaration of results will be concluded by the July 1, as the counselling for NEET UG is likely to begin on July 4.

With this order, the court has closed the issue pertaining to grace marks or compensatory marks awarded in NEET-UG. The issue pertaining to cancellation of the NEET UG exam will now come up for hearing on July 8.

The court reiterated that they are not inclined to stay the counselling for UG medical seats, as the court can reverse any decision taken during the counselling.

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan too rejected allegations of paper leak in medical entrance exam NEET-UG, saying there is no evidence of it.

During the course of the hearing, the lawyer Sai Deepak, who appeared for the Physics Wallah's CEO Alakh Pandey told the court that the re-examination option should be made available to all the candidates who suffered issues during the examination on May 5. However, the court refused to entertain this request.

After the grace marks controversy surfaced, the education ministry set up a four-member panel to review the grace marks awarded to more than 1,500 candidates. Students had alleged that grace marks contributed to 67 students sharing the top rank, a number that was unusually high.

On June 11, the SC sought NTA's response on a petition seeking the cancellation of the NEET-UG 2024 examination following allegations of wide-spread irregularities in the all-India test which enables admission to medical colleges.

“The sanctity of the exam has been affected, so we need answers,” a bench of justices Vikram Nath and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said on June 11. The court, however, refused to stay the counselling and adjourned the case to July 8.

On June 11, Physics Wallah chief executive Alakh Pandey moved the Supreme Court (SC) against random awarding of grace marks to at least 1,500 students in the NEET UG 2024 examination conducted by the NTA.

The Noida-based edtech firm's CEO has accused the agency of inefficiency in explaining the formula behind giving grace marks to the students. Pandey said his team has collected signatures from about 20,000 students, which clearly shows that approximately 70 to 80 marks have been awarded randomly to at least 1,500 students.

One more petition highlighted the same issue also came up for hearing in the Supreme Court.