NEET-UG SC hearing: Court remarks only 17 of 61 students actual first rankers, 44 got grace marks for question with two correct answers

As the Supreme Court began hearing the petitions on the NEET matter on Thursday, several arguments questioning the exam's sanctity were raised by the counsel against NTA.

The hearing also stumbled upon the question of 61 students scoring 720 out of 720 marks in the examination, even after the marks were revised.

Regarding this, the physics question argument was raised, which stated that the question had two correct answers. The NTA counsel said that 44 out of these 61 were given marks for the questions having one extra answer as per an old NCERT booklet.

In response to this, SC affirmed the fact that there are just 17 students who are, by all facts, truly the first rankers. The CJI D Y Chandrachud said, "As the matter stands now, 61 students get 720/720, out of whom 44 are students who got extra marks for the two correct options for a question. So the number really is 17."

Earlier, the National Testing Agency (NTA) dismissed allegations regarding the physics question in the NEET-UG 2024 exam, stating that it did not adversely affect candidates.

The NTA deemed the challenge to the exam as baseless and referred to the information bulletin, which clearly states the marking scheme for questions with multiple correct options, according to Live Law.

Amongst the arguments presented on the matter, a candidate argued that she refrained from attempting the question to avoid negative marking, contrary to the guidelines provided by NTA. Consequently, a demand was made to rectify and reissue the exam results based on revised marks.

Here's the question:

Statement I: “Atoms are electrically neutral as they contain equal numbers of positive and negative charges.” 

Statement II: “Atoms of each element are stable and emit their characteristic spectrum.”

Based on the two statements above, choose the correct option from the following: 

(a) First is correct but second is incorrect; 

(b) First is incorrect but second is correct; 

(c) Both first and second statements are correct;

(d) both statements are incorrect.

The marking explanation

Now, when the answer key was released, the NEET website showed option (a) as the right answer. However, many students contested the answer key on the basis of the information given in an older version of NCERT, according to which both statements were right.

Hence, based on this argument, NTA offered grace marks to students who had marked option (c) as their answer. So, these 44 students, who ideally should have received 715 marks out of 720, ended up receiving a perfect score of 720. 

Expert analysis concluded that two options should be considered correct in place of one, further supporting NTA's decision.