1563 students who had been given grace marks as they did not have adequate time for the examination will have to sit for the re-test
Supreme Court has now cancelled the grace marks awarded to 1563 students who had appeared for the NEET-UG (medical entrance) examination. There will be a retest on June 23 in which these students will appear. The court has not put a stay on the counselling which is set to start in a few days.
Each of these students were given a grace marks of 70-80 for not having got adequate time to answer the original paper landing the NEET and the National Testing Authority (NTA) that conducts the examination in a unique situation where 67 students scored full marks and got first position. A bunch of organisations and students had gone to court challenging this.
The SC did not find merit in a plea that called for a full reexamination and the NTA has said that it will not release the marks of these 1563 students without the grace marks and if the students are not happy with the result then they can sit for the reexamination. There have also been persistent allegations and insinuations about a paper leak tha have been categorically rejected by the NTA. The next hearing in the case if slated for July 8.
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is the single test that students need to take to enter the MBBS programmes offered by government and private medical colleges across the country. Political parties opposed to the NDA have claimed that this current marking fiasco is a “scam” and needs to be investigated by an agency such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). State governments that were opposed to NEET earlier have also sharpened their attacks with Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin saying that the vulnerability of the test to these kinds of irregularities that had made his government oppose it.
