NEET-UG Results Controversy: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that even if there is 0.001% negligence on the part of anyone it should be thoroughly dealt with. The top court pulled up the National Testing Agency (NTA) and said that think about the children who have prepared for the examination. The court said this while hearing another petition challenging the NEET UG results. The court issued notice and tagged it along with other pleas to be heard on July 8.
On contention of 20,000 students against the retest for 1563 students following a previous Supreme Court order allowing Centre's proposal to cancel grace marks and conduct re-test, the top court said that it will hear them on July 8 and if there is a need it can order another retest for those students.
"As an agency which is conducting the examination, you must act fair. If there is a mistake, say yes, this is a mistake, and this is the action we are going to take. At least that inspires confidence in your performance," the bench told NTA.
A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice SNV Bhatti heard the petitions alleging use of unfair means, malpractices and paper leak in the NEET-UG examinations conducted by the NTA for medical entrance test.
At the outset, the counsel appearing for petitioners said that one cannot forget about the labour of many aspirants who appeared in the exams and then there need to be a check on the allegations of use of mobile phones and paper leak.
It may be recalled that last week on Thursday the Centre told the Supreme Court that it has decided to cancel the grace marks awarded to1563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates in NEET-UG 2024 results. Centre added that these 1563 students will be given an option to take a re-test or their result will be calculated on marks obtained without grace marks. The Supreme Court accepted this proposal after confirming with petitioners that they do not have any problem with this.
The Supreme Court on Thursday also ordered that all petitions alleging paper leak and unfair means to be tagged together and be heard on July 8 and sought NTA's response on issues other than compensatory marks.
The court while dictating the order said that it has been told that the NTA committee has decided that the score cards of 1563 students will be cancelled and they will be granted opportunity to give a retest. In case they don't wish to take a retest, their marks will be calculated after deducting grace marks in the examination.
The NTA had constituted a committee to re-consider the issue after petitions were filed challenging the award of grace marks.
Advocate Balaji appearing for one of the petitioners told the court that he is satisfied with the cancellation and retest proposal. However, counsel Sai Deepak asked what about those students who did not approach the court but faced delay in the exam centre.
Advocate Sai Deepak appearing for Alakh Pandey, the founder of Physics Wallah informed the court that there were 6 examination centers where delay was reported. He pleaded that a window be kept open for those students to apply for retest. Alakh Pandey in his petition claimed that the NTA's decision to award grace marks was "arbitrary". Pandey collected representations from about 20,000 students, showing that 70-80 marks were randomly awarded as grace marks to at least 1,500 students.
Notably, the NTA conducted the NEET examination on May 5 across 4,750 centers and was taken by around 24 lakh candidates. Although the results were expected to be declared on June 14, they were announced earlier on June 4, as the evaluation of the answer sheets was completed ahead of schedule. Allegations of a question paper leak and the granting of grace marks to over 1,500 medical aspirants have sparked protests and led to the filing of cases in high courts as well as the Supreme Court.
On May 17, the Supreme Court bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud refused to stay the results after issuing notice to NTA over allegations of paper leak.
The top court today asked the counsel to save their arguments for July 8 and asked NTA to come prepared on that day.
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