The Supreme Court on Thursday disposed of petitions challenging the award of grace marks by the National Testing Agency or NTA in the NEET-UG 2024 by accepting the Centre’s recommendation to give 1,563 candidates an option of re-testing for loss of time during the examination held on May 5.
A vacation bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was told by the counsel for the Centre and the NTA that the students, who were given grace marks, will be given an option to take the re-test. The court said it will not stay the counselling process for admissions.
The Supreme Court allowed the NTA to conduct the re-test on June 23 and cancel the scorecards of the 1,563 candidates who would opt to appear. For those who do not wish to appear, their original scorecards (without the grace marks) will be considered.
The NTA informed the court that the re-test results will likely be pronounced before June 30 to facilitate the counselling process starting on July 6.
The court issued a notice regarding petitions raising alleged malpractices in the conduct of the NEET exam. The notice was tagged with petitions coming up on July 8. One of the petitions included the one filed by Physicswallah CEO Alakh Pandey.
They also include the petitions seeking to cancel NEET-UG, 2024, on account of anallegation of question paper leaks and other malpractices.
The NTA held the examination on May 5 across 4,750 centres, and around 24 lakh candidates took it. The results were expected to be declared on June 14 but were announced on June 4, apparently because the evaluation of the answer sheets was completed earlier.
Allegations such as the leak of question papers and the grant of grace marks to over 1,500 medical aspirants have led to protests and the filing of cases in seven high courts and the Supreme Court.
As many as 67 students scored a perfect 720, unprecedented in the NTA’s history, with six from a centre in Haryana’s Faridabad figuring in the list, raising suspicions about irregularities.
Scores of students protested in Delhi on June 10, seeking a probe into alleged irregularities. Grace marks, it has been alleged, contributed to 67 students sharing the top rank.
The NTA conducts the NEET-UG examination for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH, and other courses related to government and private institutions nationwide.