Read on the application
The Delhi High Court has sought a response from the National Testing Agency (NTA) on the NEET UT candidate’s application. A vacation bench of Justice DK Sharma asked the NTA’s counsel to seek suggestions on the plea that those who did not answer the question be given the same marks as those who answered one of the two correct answers. The petition stated that the principle of fairness in competitive examination states that all candidates should be evaluated at the same level and alleged that the authorities were not being fair by giving marks to two correct options. When the instruction clearly indicated that only one option was correct.
The applicant said that to avoid negative marking, he decided not to attempt the questions and scored 633 marks out of 720, with an aggregate percentage of around 98 and an all-India rank of around 44,700. The petitioner has stated that one mark can significantly change his all India rank and therefore, sought a direction to the NTA to correct and republish the NEET-UG 2024 result, rank and percentage based on the revised marks.
NTA released the final answer key on 3rd June. It was observed that both question number 2 and 4 options of test booklet code R5 were considered correct, contrary to suggestions that the results declared by the officials were arbitrary and capricious based on unfair grace marks awarded to various candidates. The hearing of this case will be conducted next week.
“Compelling candidates to award no mark in case of wrong question and one mark in case of two correct answers to the question is contrary to the instructions which state that only one answer will be correct,” the petition said. The petition argued that the examination has a provision for negative marking and hundreds of ranks can go up or down for each mark.
“After the publication of the final result, it was found that 67 candidates have secured 720/720 marks,” the petition said. However, before 2024, there was a different picture.