Supreme Court hears plea over NEET-UG Paper Leak questioning Question No 19 and Four Marks

NEET-UG 2024 was held on May 5 and results were declared the following month. A petitioner argued that the National Testing Agency (NTA) had awarded grace marks to students who had chosen what she claimed was the incorrect answer, resulting in 44 students scoring a perfect 720/720, while she scored 711/720 for not answering that question. The court acknowledged the petitioner’s argument as strong and asked the NTA to seek the opinion of experts to resolve the issue. The court requested the Director of IIT Delhi to form a team of experts to determine the correct option.

The petitioner argued that there could only be one correct answer and chose not to answer to avoid negative marking. She expressed her belief that if given four marks for that question, she would move up in the rankings. The NTA, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, stated that both options were possible answers, which the petitioner disputed, citing discrepancies in the old and new editions of the textbook. The NTA explained that students were expected to follow the new book, which indicated ‘option 4’ as the correct answer.

The court questioned the NTA’s decision to treat both options as correct and raised concerns about the integrity of the entire examination. Further issues were raised regarding an unusually high number of perfect scores and the granting of grace marks to 1,563 students. The government, referring to an analysis by IIT Madras, insisted that there was no evidence of mass malpractice or cheating benefiting some candidates. Additionally, one of the ringleaders was recently arrested.