After the NEET 2024 results scandal questioned the sanctity of one of the toughest competitive examinations in India, the National Testing Agency (NTA) and Min of Education (MoE) announced that a 4-member committee has been commissioned to probe into the allegations. This committee will re-check the response sheets of the 1,563 candidates, who, allegedly have got grace marks due to "Loss of Time" in the NEET UG 2024 examination.

Subsequent to the allegations on the marks granted to these students cropped up, the NTA had said that these marks were grace marks, given for "Loss of Exam Time". No such information is however, provided in the NEET brochure. The committee, which consists of a former UPSC Chairman, will announce their verdict by 15 June.

Allegations

As the allegations unfolded, it came to light that 1563 students, across 6 centres, were given grace marks. 6 students among these happened to be toppers. Two centres were in Chhatisgarh, and one each in Meghalaya, Gujarat (Surat), Chandigarh and Haryana (Bahadurgarh). The results of the NEET UG 2024 were declared on 4 June, the day the election results were announced. The results, surprisingly were announced 10 days before the scheduled date of 14 June. Of the record 67 students who got AIR 1, the NTA said that 6 students got grace marks due to loss of exam time, 44 got grace marks due to wrong answer in the Physics paper and 17 students got the rank based on merit. Even the cut off marks in the general category as well as reservation categories have gone up substantially this year.  All of these issues have raised questions on the marking by the NTA and some even suggest that there was a paper leak in Bihar as well as manipulation in some exam centres. The irregularities in the NEET UG 2024 results could well be a scam.

The issue concerning the NEET exam is pertinent to 6 centres and 1600 candidates

We had formed a committee of experts, analyzed the issue and addressed the grievances

To allay the fear of 1600 candidates especially, and other 23 lakh candidates, National Testing Agency (NTA)… pic.twitter.com/bZjpxTDoZ0

— PIB India (@PIB_India) June 8, 2024

1600 students presented their grievances, following which this committee was setup to look into their grievances which also include hidden grace marks, illogically high scores, unexpected number of high scores and substantially high cut-off scores. Many students also complained that they recieved much lesser marks as compared to the answer-key OMR comparison. Six of the 67 students who scored full marks, were from a single centre in Haryana.

National Convenor of the IMA Junior Doctors Network, Dr. Indranil Deshmukh, has claimed that it was impossible to get scores of 718-719 due to the negative marking system.

A number of PIL and writ petition have been filed, questioning the correctness of the answer key for some papers, the awarding of grace marks as well as preparation of merit list based on central and state government reservation policies.

The Congress has demanded a probe by the Supreme Court in the alleged NEET Scam. Hasan Mushrif, the Minister of Health in the Maharashtra Government 

The the verdict of the committee will NOT AFFECT the results of the other candidates and nor will it affect the counselling or admission process, said Subodh Kumar Singh, Director General, NTA. He also added that there was no paper leak, and that the integrity of the examination has not been compromised.

Source: Media Reports / PIB