Dharmendra Pradhan said there was no mention of paper leak in NEET-UG 2024. (File Photo)
A political slugfest has begun after the Centre told Supreme Court that it will conduct a retest for students who were given grace marks in NEET-UG 2024.
With a re-examination ordered for the students who were given grace marks, a political slugfest has begun over National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Undergraduate 2024 (NEET-UG 2024). While the Opposition parties have demanded a thorough investigation and even scrapping of NEET, the Government has said there has been no corruption or paper leak as is being alleged by some.
“There is no corruption in NEET exams, there is no mention of any paper leak,” said Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday, adding that action will be taken against the culprits if any wrongdoing is found. On questions being raised on the role of the NTA, Pradhan said, “It was after an SC order only in past that the NTA was constituted.”
The Centre had on Thursday told the Supreme Court that the grace marks of 1,563 students who appeared for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Undergraduate 2024 (NEET-UG 2024) will be cancelled and they will have the option to appear for a re-examination.
The Opposition is up in arms after the retest was ordered for 1,563 students. The Congress has demanded a CBI probe into the NEET mess. Assam Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi, slamming the Education Minister, said, “He gave a clean chit to NTA without probe. This government wants to ignore issues of public concern. INDI alliance will raise the concerns of these students in the coming days and help them get justice.”
“I want to ask the Education Minister, on what basis has he given a clean chit to the NTA? How many students or parents has he met? We will bring the NDA government to its knees and make the government accountable to the students,” Gogoi said.
Students protesting at Jantar Mantar after the Centre’s decision also demanded a CBI probe into the NEET-UG 2024 irregularities.
The DMK, meanwhile, reiterated that NEET should be scrapped. Commenting on the Centre’s decision to conduct a re-test for the students who got grace marks, Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian said NEET should be scrapped.
Adding that none of the 1,563 students were from Tamil Nadu, he said, “Only students from Rajasthan, Gujarat , Haryana have been given grace marks by the NTA.”
“We will not be approaching the court, but will continue to oppose NEET. We demand the Union Government to scrap NEET following these irregularities. Now not only TN is opposing NEET, there are several other states opposing the exam,” Subramanian added.
On Thursday, the court, after hearing the Centre’s decision, said that a re-exam will be conducted for the 1,563 students. “A subsequent Committee has made recommendations after deliberations which are placed before us. According to recommendation, scorecards of 1563 candidates will be cancelled and stand withdrawn. A re-exam will be conducted for these 1563 candidates. The results of those who don’t wish to appear will be based on their actual marks without compensatory marks,” the Vacation Bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said. “For those who appear for re-test, the May 5 scores will be discarded,” the court added.
The NEET-UG 2024 was held on May 5 for around 24 lakh students and the results were announced on June 4, much ahead of its anticipated release date of June 14. Suspicions were aroused when the NEET results showed that 67 individuals, six of whom came from the same or nearby testing centre, achieved a perfect score of 720 marks.
After students filed petitions in the high courts, the NTA had formed a Grievance Redressal Committee comprising examination and academic experts who reviewed the complaints based on factual reports and CCTV footage. They confirmed the loss of exam time and compensated 1,563 candidates with grace marks based on the normalisation formula formulated by the Supreme Court in its June 13, 2018 judgment in a CLAT exam case. The revised marks for these 1,563 candidates ranged from 20 to 720, with two candidates scoring 718 and 719 due to compensatory marks.
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