NEET-UG 2024 : Plea In Supreme Court Challenges Grant Of 'Grace Marks' To 1563 Candidates; Urgent Hearing Sought

A writ petition has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the National Testing Agency(NTA) to grant grace marks to students in the National Entrance cum Eligibility Test(NEET) held this year for admissions to the Under Graduate medical courses.

The petitioner, Mr Jaripate Karthik, from the state of Andhra Pradesh who is a NEET applicant filed a Writ Petition under Article 32 of the Constitution challenging the action of the National Testing Agency in giving compensatory marks to 1536 candidates on the grounds of 'loss of time'. The counsels Mr Y. Balaji and Mr. Chirag Sharma for the petitioner have approached the Supreme Court registry for an early listing of the matter.

The petitioner contends that the incorrect application of the 'normalization formula' to give grace marks is illegal, arbitrary and in violation of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India. According to the petitioner, the 'normalization formula' could not be applied in the present case as the exam is aimed to ascertain subject knowledge but the formula grants marks not by ascertainment but on the assumption of knowledge.

According to the petitioner, extending the “normalization formula” is flawed where all the questions have been attempted by a candidate because:

In case a candidate answers the questions wrong, then the “normalization formula” automatically does not apply, and;
In case a candidate answers the questions right, then the candidate has already been granted its corresponding marks.
Petitioner argued that the “normalization formula” at best, if at all, can only extend to the number of questions that may be left unanswered in proportion to the loss of time, given that each question has equal mark weightage therefore equal time distribution to answer each question can be assumed.

Additionally, it was highlighted that since the exam was conducted in an offline mode there is "no standard to accurately measure the loss of time". There have been no evaluations, or reports disclosed by the Authorities to justify the grant of grace marks in the event of alleged loss of time.

"No evaluations, reports, considerations or CCTV footages have been put out in public domain by the Respondent no. 1 that explain the alleged reason of loss of time in order to grant of compensatory marks to 1563 candidates in the examination."

"The examination having been conducted in offline mode cannot have a means of technical delay. Moreover, question papers presumably reach the Examination Centers well before the commencement of examination."

On June 9, another petition was filed in the Supreme Court to recall the NEET-UG 2024 results & the conduct of a fresh examination.The petitioners have alleged arbitrariness in the grant of grace marks. In this regard, it was contended that high marks of 718 & 719 out of 720 secured by several students were “statistically impossible”. It was alleged that the grant of grace marks by the National Testing Agency, purportedly due to delay during the exam, was a mala fide exercise to give “backdoor entry” to certain students. The petitioners also raised suspicions about the fact that 67 students from one particular centre got full 720 marks.

On May 17, the Supreme Court had issued notice on one a petition seeking cancellation of the NEET exam due to alleged paper leak, however refused to stay the declaration of results.

It may be noted that on June 8, the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the Union Education Ministry Saturday announced the formation of a four-member committee to review the results of over 1,500 candidates who were awarded “grace marks” to compensate for the “loss of time” suffered while appearing for this year's NEET (Undergraduate) exam.

The present writ petition is filed with the assistance of AOR Chand Qureshi.