Madras HC orders NTA to give grace marks to NEET candidate

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has directed the authorities concerned to award 4 grace marks to an unsuccessful SC aspirant for MBBS course for prescribing a wrong question in NEET conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).

The bench was allowing a writ appeal from T Udhayakumar, who abstained from answering question no. 97 as none of the key answers appeared correct. Fearing deduction of one mark for giving wrong answer, he preferred to leave it unanswered. He, however, had secured 92 out of 720, one short to the cut-off mark of 93 for SC candidates. He sent a representation online. But it was not considered.

Hence, he filed a writ petition, but his counsel withdrew it later without obtaining liberty from the court to move it again at a later stage. Hence, the present appeal. "When the appellant/writ petitioner hailing from a downtrodden community has secured 92 marks in the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (UG) 2022 examination, in view of the wrong key answers given to question No.97, he failed to secure the four marks." "It is also the admitted case of both parties that the key answers to the question have been wrongly given.

It is not out of context to mention herein that Article 46 of the Constitution says that the State shall protect the economic interests of the weaker sections of the society, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes," the first bench of acting chief Justice T Raja and Justice D Krishnakumar said in a recent order, while allowing the appeal as a special case.

The NTA, being an instrumentality of the State, cannot refuse to award the four grace marks to the appellant who belongs to the weaker section of the society, the bench said. The judges held the writ appeal filed by the appellant is certainly entertainable. The relief provided should be confined to the appellant alone, as he has diligently approached this court without any delay. The bench made it clear that this order is passed in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case and may not be treated as a precedent.