SC on NEET-UG 2024: 4 lakh students to lose 5 marks each as court orders 'only 1 right answer' on physics question

The Supreme Court recognised and upheld IIT Delhi's conclusion regarding the disputed physics question, emphasising that there is only one correct answer.

In light of this decision, the Supreme Court in its Tuesday hearing directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to revise the scores based solely on the single correct answer.

The Chief Justice of India stated, "Considering the expert assessment conducted by the team from IIT Delhi, we have full confidence in the accuracy of the identified option. Options 2 and 4 are mutually exclusive and cannot be correct simultaneously. We endorse the IIT Delhi report, and as a result, the NTA is to revise the NEET UG results by confirming that option 4 is the only correct answer to the question. We have opted not to specify the question number, as it may differ based on the exam procedure, in order to maintain the integrity of the process."

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has officially concluded that the correct answer to the contentious question is option four: 'Statement 1 is correct, but statement 2 is incorrect.'

During the hearing, the CJI questioned the timeline of the inaccuracies in the textbook used for the exam. The Solicitor General (SG) confirmed that the incorrect answer remained in the textbook until 2021.

Now, according to the previous marking scheme released by the NTA, where marks were awarded for the incorrect answer that prevailed in the older NCERT books. However, as per the court's ruling these marks will be deducted for 4 lakh students as they had answered this question wrongly.

Among these 4 lakh student, 44 of the 61 toppers had also marked the wrong answer for the question. Now, after the revised results, these students will lose 5 marks each, bringing down the toppers number to 17.

Here us the controversial question:

Given below are two statements:

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.

In light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:
1. Statement I is incorrect but Statement II is correct.
2. Both Statement I and Statement II are correct.
3. Both Statement I and Statement II are incorrect.
4. Statement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect.

Many students had also answered option 2 as the correct answer, as it was stated as correct in the previous editions of the NCERT. But, the SC ruled that only option 4 will be considered as the correct answer.