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Synopsis

A fresh plea has been filed in the Supreme Court, questioning a decision by the National Testing Agency to award grace marks to 1563 candidates due to time loss in NEET -UG examination, leading to shooting up of overall merit list.

In a PIL, Alakh Pandey, who claims to be an educationist, has contended the cause of action for filing the present writ petition arose on June 04, 2024, when the National Testing Agency has declared the result of National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Under Graduate) 2024. 

"The declaration of result was soon followed by news of number of concerns involving grant of grace marks, abnormally high scores, high number of 100% scores, high cut-off scores etc. Resultantly, candidates started raising number of queries relating to the non-transparency in the manner in which the results had been declared," his plea claimed.

Pandey states that NTA has been conducting the NEET (UG) examination for the last eight years and the incidence of time loss is not new. Every year these issues have been witnessed in spurts across the nation and widely covered in media all throughout. 

"On what grounds has NTA decided to award grace marks to compensate for time loss this year only when the same has never been done in earlier years," the plea asked, citing instance of six students having got full 720 marks from one centre only.

Dealing with a writ petition filed by Shivangi Mishra and others, a bench of Justices Vikram Natha and Ahsanuddin Amanullah has issued notice to the National Testing Agency's (NTA) seeking its response saying the "sanctity of the exam seemed to have been affected".

The court, however, had refused to stay the ongoing counselling for admissions. The plea seeking a direction for a fresh examination to admission to undergraduate courses in medical colleges across the country has also been fixed for hearing on July 8, when another such plea is scheduled to come up for consideration.

Said petition has been filed jointly by Abdullah Mohammed Faiz and Shaik Roshan Mohiddin from Warangal and Prakasam districts respectively, who claimed to be members of an organisation, working for assistance and benefit of the students.

Case Title: Alakh Pandey vs. National Testing Agency