The results of the 1563 applicants who were prepared based on the compensation marks that the National Testing Agency (NTA) provided them for their exam time loss will be canceled and withdrawn, the Union Government and the NTA notified the Supreme Court.

These impacted applicants will be informed of their actual NEET UG 2024 exam scores, which were collected on May 5, 2024. They will then have the option of keeping their original marks (minus the compensatory marks) or taking the exam again, which will be administered by NTA.

The Centre Government's and the NTA's attorneys advised Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta of the Apex Court that the NTA would probably contact the 1563 impacted applicants about the retest today, June 13, 2024. Furthermore, in order for NEET UG 2024 counseling to start on July 6th, 2024, the re-examination for the impacted applicants is probably scheduled for June 23rd. The results of the candidates who appear in the re-exam will be released by June 30th, 2024.

After taking into account these arguments, the Apex Court bench decided to reject the case that contested the NTA's choice to provide candidates grace marks in order to make up for lost time.

The Apex Court has scheduled the next hearing for July 8th in relation to the other matter involving the use of unfair tactics in the NEET UG 2024 test.

The Supreme Court had received several pleas regarding regarding the NEET-UG 2024 examinations. The Court scheduled a hearing for today consider three of these pleas.

In one of these complaints, it was claimed that unfair methods were used in the NEET UG 2024 exam. In the second plea, the NTA's practice of giving grace marks to 1563 students was criticized.

Recommendations of the Union Government Regarding the Grace Marks Issue:

When the matter of grace marks was brought before the Supreme Court, Mr. Agarwal, the Union of India's attorney, stated that a meeting of the committee appointed by NTA had taken place on Wednesday, June 12.

According to the Government Counsel's submission, the Committee reached the following decision: The committee is of the view that the loss of time ascertained by the GRC (grievance redressal committee) and the use of the methodology to obtain compensatory marks resulted in a skewed situation and produced a strange outcome of results. The skewed situation seems to have occurred as GRC did not take into account the compensation for the loss of time had to be limited to a number of unattempted questions only. In fact the outcome of the aforesaid process created a fallout whereby it caused serious resentment among the students community. The process resulted in creation of a distinct class of candidates who gained an advantage and it appears to be disproportionate as well as unfair for the rest of the candidates. After examining all the aspects of the situation totality, this committee concludes that the most appropriate and reasonable solution to the issue would be subjecting those 1563 candidates to a retest at the earliest possible."

In regard to this, the NTA committee suggested the following actions:

1. All 1563 impacted candidates' scorecards that were issued on June 4, 2024, have been canceled and revoked. Through their registered email addresses, the impacted 1563 candidates were notified of their true score—that is, the normalization—without receiving any compensation.

2. The impacted applicants will undergo another examination. The NTA will also contain the reexamination directives passed by specific instances.

3. Based on their actual marks from the exam taken on May 5, 2024, without receiving any compensation, the results of those impacted students who choose not to retake the exam will be announced. The marks that the candidates who retake the test receive will be deducted from their overall marks beginning of May 5, 2024.

"They [the 1563 impacted candidates] will have an option," the Union Government's attorney was told.

The petitioners' attorney objected, arguing that this could be against the 2018 Supreme Court ruling in the CLAT case, where all parties involved had an open window.

The bench noted in response, "You are having a dispute with the award of the compensatory marks, they are suggesting that they are doing away with that. The issue is resolved for you."

In a separate petition, Advocate Balaji, who represented the candidates, stated that the recommendation was "fairly reasonable". He raised worry that holding a re-examination could be like opening a Pandora's box, since all candidates with lower scores could decide to take another test, but the bench clarified that only 1563 individuals would have this opportunity.

After that, the petitioners' attorney in one of the cases expressed worry that the policy might not apply to other candidates who may have chosen not to contact the court, as it only applied to the 1563 candidates. He asked the Court to leave open the possibility of those applicants who had comparable problems but were unable to address the Court.

The bench rejected the recommendation and pointed out that the exam was administered on May 5 and June 13. So, over a month has gone by and nobody has stepped forward.

Observations of the Supreme Court:

The Supreme Court bench ordered, after taking into account the arguments made by the petitioners' attorneys, the Union's attorney, and Mr. Naresh Kaushik, the learning counsel of the National Testing Agency.

"The petitioner who had appeared for NEET-UG 2024 has raised a grievance regarding the grant of compensatory marks to 1563 candidates using the normalisation formula where, at the examination centres, the candidates who had appeared were not allowed 3 hours 20 minutes of time admissible to them, but were permitted to take their examination for lesser time. The compensatory marks have been awarded on the basis of the recommendation of a Committee [Grievance Redressal Committee] relying upon a judgment of this Court in the case of Disha Panchal vs.Union of India and others."

"This award of compensatory marks was represented and some petitions were also filed challenging such award of such marks. The National Testing Agency thereafter constituted another committee to reconsider the issue and gave its recommendation on the award of compensatory marks. The subsequent committee held meetings on 10, 11 and 12th June 2024 and after deliberations has made recommendations which have been placed before us by Mr. Agarwal for the counsel for Union of India," noted the bench.

"According to the recommendations, it has been suggested that the scorecards of the affected 1563 candidates issued on June 4, 2024 will stand cancelled and withdrawn. These affected 1563 candidates will be informed of their actual scores without compensatory marks. Further, re-examination will be conducted for the affected 1563 candidates. The results of these affected candidates who do not wish to appear for the re-examination will be declared based on their actual marks without compensation obtained by them in the examination held on May 5, 2024 and the marks obtained by the candidates who will appear in the retest will be considered and their marks based on the examination held on 05.05.2024 will be discarded," it further mentioned in the order.

The Apex Court is scheduled to address the remaining arguments pertaining to the use of unfair tactics in the test on July 8, 2024.

(Input from various sources)

(Rehash/Priyanka Pandey/MSM)