NEET 2024 Result: Delhi HC seeks NTA's response on plea regarding answer key

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on June 7 sought the National Testing Agency's (NTA) response to a petition filed by a National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) candidate raising concerns over a question in the answer key that had two correct answers. A vacation bench of Justice DK Sharma directed the NTA's counsel to seek instructions regarding the petition, which argues that equal marks should be awarded to candidates who did not attempt the question, similar to those who attempted either of the two correct answers.

The petition contends that the principle of fairness in competitive examinations mandates that all candidates be evaluated on an equal footing. It alleges that the authorities compromised this fairness by awarding marks for two correct options when the instructions clearly indicated that only one option was correct.

The 17-year-old petitioner, in an effort to avoid a negative impact on her score, chose not to attempt the question. She scored 633 out of 720 marks, achieving a percentile of around 98 and an all-India rank close to 44,700 in the entrance examination. The petitioner argues that a single mark can significantly alter her all-India rank and has therefore sought a direction for the NTA to correct and republish the NEET-UG 2024 results, ranks, and percentiles based on the revised marks.

"On June 3, 2024, the respondent published the final answer key. It was observed that for question no. 29 of test booklet code R5, both options 2 and 4 were considered correct, contrary to the instructions that stated only one option could be correct," the petition stated.

"Not awarding marks in the case of a wrong question and forcing candidates to mark one in the case of a question having two correct answers is antithetical to the instruction that only one answer shall be right. It is submitted that it is extremely arbitrary for the respondent to expect candidates to attempt a wrong question when there is negative marking and each mark can make a difference of hundreds of ranks, if not thousands," it added.

The petition further claimed that the results declared by the authorities were arbitrary and based on unfair grace marks given to various candidates without consideration. "After the publication of the final result, it was identified that 67 candidates achieved a perfect score (720/720). However, trends prior to 2024 present a significantly different picture," the petition noted.

The matter is scheduled to be heard next week.