NEET exam scam: NEET exam will be held again
The central government on Thursday told the Supreme Court that the decision to give grace marks to 1,563 students in the NEET-UG exam has been canceled. All these students will have to appear for the exam again on June 23, the result of which will be released on June 30. The lawyer of the National Testing Agency (NTA) told the vacation bench of the Supreme Court that the students who do not want to appear for the exam again will be given a score card without grace marks. The Supreme Court has said that the counseling process for other students will continue. The court ordered that all the petitions will be heard together on July 8. Allegations of paper leak and many other irregularities have been made in these petitions. The NEET-UG exam was conducted on May 5 this year at 4,750 examination centers across the country, in which about 24 lakh students appeared for the exam. The results of the exam were announced on June 4, but when it was revealed that 67 students had scored 100% marks, 720 marks, there were protests across the country.
Students and parents alleged that the exam was rigged. In Haryana, 6 students got 100% marks in a single centre in Faridabad. On this, the Director General of NTA said that since there was a delay in distributing the question papers at some centres, those students were given grace marks due to lack of time. People did not accept this explanation of NTA. Now the future of lakhs of students is hanging in the balance. The same students who had cherished the dream of becoming doctors are protesting on the streets today. The students who were working hard for many years to become doctors are now making rounds of the courts, filing petition after petition.
The kind of irregularities that happened in the NEET exam has troubled the students and their parents. While in the last four years there were hardly 6-7 students who scored 100% marks in NEET, this year the number of such students suddenly increased to 67. How did this happen is a mystery. People are asking how out of these 67 toppers, 6 are from the same centre in Haryana? How are there 6 toppers with roll numbers from the same series? Did the National Testing Agency, the agency conducting the NEET exam, commit any mistake in conducting the exam? Or did giving grace marks to students of some centres while giving the result create such a big problem?
The question is also why did the need arise to give grace marks, when grace marks were never given in NEET before? What happened this year and even if grace marks were given, how many marks were given, on what basis? Brijesh Maheshwari, director of Allen Institute, said that ever since NTA started conducting NEET, some irregularities have been happening in every exam. Brijesh Maheshwari said that from 2020 to 2023, only 7 children have got 100 percent marks in NEET exam, but this time, it is very surprising that so many students from a single center have got the number one rank.
This time the most talked about area is Jhajjar district of Haryana. 6 students who gave the exam in Jhajjar’s Hardayal Public School have got top rank. That is, 10% of the total 67 toppers. That is, 6 students gave the exam sitting in the same centre, got 100% marks, got full 720 out of 720 and topped the ranking. Two students of this centre of Jhajjar got 718 and 719 marks and got the second top rank. In the All India ranking, the students of this centre of Jhajjar are at 61 to 69 marks. Allegations were made that all these students sat together and gave the exam and all were given full marks. Those who scored less were given grace marks. Seeing this ranking, even the principal of Jhajjar’s Hardayal Public School is surprised. Principal Anju Yadav said that the students who got the All India top ranking, all of them sat in different rooms and gave the exam, yet how all of them got the same marks, is beyond her understanding.
When questions were raised, the National Testing Agency clarified that students were given less time due to some error in distribution of paper at Hardayal Public School of Jhajjar and some other centers and other reasons, therefore grace marks were given to 1563 students. This is the reason why the ranking increased by two to three times. Director General of National Testing Agency Subodh Singh said that NTA has decided a formula for grace marks, in which if a student’s time is wasted then he is given grace marks.
But the principal of Hardayal Public School told a big thing. She said that there was a lot of confusion about the question paper before the exam. First it was said that they have to go and collect the papers from one bank. Then the exam coordinator asked to collect the papers from two banks. First two sets of question papers were distributed to the students. Then after talking to NTA, one set was taken from the table and the other set was left for the students to solve. Not only this, the paper on which the students took the exam at the center of Hardayal Public School was a different question paper from the NEET exam in the whole country.
Anju Yadav told that she had also complained about this to NTA on the same day. She also showed its mail to India TV. The interesting thing is that NTA releases the ‘answer key’ of its question paper, but NTA did not release the ‘answer key’ of the question paper on which the exam was held at the center of Jhajjar. This is a big question that how did a different NEET paper reach this school in Jhajjar? And is this the reason why 6 students of this centre got 100% marks? We received complaints of such mismanagement from many examination centres.
On May 5, NEET exam was being conducted in a school in Mantown, Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan. When the papers were distributed to the students, Hindi medium students were given English papers and English medium students were given Hindi papers. Some papers had answer sheets attached to them. When the students created a ruckus, the centre’s management said that they will have to take the exam from this paper. But the students did not listen, they came out of the school, the police lathi charged but later NTA conducted the exam again in the evening. As important as the NEET exam is, its results are equally mysterious. 8-8 toppers in one centre, 100% marks to 6 students in one centre, grace marks were given at one centre, two sets of question papers were distributed at one centre, is this an exam or a joke? This clearly means that the NEET exam system is not strong. People have lost faith in it. The answers of NTA, which conducts the exam, are even more surprising. NTA says that a committee has been formed for investigation, grace marks have also been given as per rules, saying this is an even bigger joke. Just think, such an ad hoc attitude in such a big exam where there are 23-34 lakh students.
This is nothing less than criminal negligence. Students who have been working hard day and night for 2-3 years, students whose parents have saved every penny to arrange for expensive books and coaching fees, the exam which has become a test not only of students but also of parents, when trust is broken, when something fishy is seen, then people’s feelings get hurt. They get angry, people protest, which is absolutely justified. We can hope that the Supreme Court will hear this matter in depth, some solution will be found.
