The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the nationwide exam for candidates to medical institutions, came under heavy criticism from the Supreme Court on Tuesday due to issues over the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to medical colleges.
“If there’s even 0.001% negligence on anyone’s part, it should be thoroughly dealt with,” the Supreme Court said.
While considering a number of petitions about alleged exam anomalies, the Supreme Court stated that it expects the NTA to take “timely action” and that it is the agency’s responsibility to guarantee that all applicants receive fair consideration.
“As an agency which is conducting the examination, you must act fair. If there is a mistake, say yes, this is a mistake, and this is the action we are going to take. At least that inspires confidence in your performance,” a bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice SVN Bhatti told the NTA.
The Supreme Court said that the organisation should remember the effort that students put in to be prepared to take one of the most difficult admission tests in the entire country.
“Imagine a person who has played fraud on the system becomes a doctor, he is more deleterious to the society. Children study hard to get through NEET. The next hearing in the case will be held on July 8,” it said.
Last week, the NTA informed the Supreme Court that the grace marks awarded to 1,563 candidates in the NEET-UG test will be removed, and that candidates can retake the exam on June 23. The apex court was informed that the retest results will be announced prior to June 30.
In the event that any of these candidates decided not to retake the exam, their previous score—minus the additional marks—would be reinstated.
On June 4, the results for the medical entrance exam—which was given by 24 lakh candidates on May 5—were released. Soon, reports circulated that an exam paper had been leaked. A total of 67 students achieved a perfect score of 720 out of 720.
Grace marks have been awarded to several students allegedly to compensate for the loss of time at the exam centre.
Numerous student associations have voiced their disapproval of the alleged anomalies in the NEET, such as the distribution of incorrect question papers, the tearing of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets, or the delays in the sheet distribution.
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