New Delhi: The National Testing Agency (NTA) has announced that it would form a high-powered committee to look into the grace marks awarded to 1600 candidates who had appeared for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) in six centres — an issue that has led candidates to question the integrity of the examination process as there was no mention of these compensatory marks in the prospectus issued before the examination.
Addressing a press conference on June 8, NTA director general Subodh Kumar said the recommendations of the committee, headed by a former chairperson of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), are expected within a week.
It may be mentioned here that this high-powered committee would be the second one to take a call on the issue of grace marks. Kumar refused to name the chairperson or other members of the committee.
The NTA chief, once again, claimed that there was nothing wrong with the examination process.
Kumar clarified that the limited mandate of the high-powered committee would be to study the grace marks awarded to 1600 students in six centres. He said if the new committee recommends a retest for these 1600 students, it would also be considered.
A retest for only a group of students would leave all the other candidates — more than 23 lakh — in a disadvantaged position, asserted Dr Jyothi R, Indian Medical Association Junior Doctor’s Network (IMA-JDN) convenor.
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“What if these 1600 students get easier questions than what were originally asked in the NEET paper. More importantly, there would be no uniformity in the question paper for one same examination” Dr Jyothi said while speaking to The Wire. She added that the only way to remove doubts is to completely cancel the previously conducted examination and order a fresh one to be held for all the 24 lakh students who have appeared in the test.
The NTA had contended that the grace marks were awarded to the 1600 students who had complained of loss of time due to lapses at the examination centre, including delayed distribution of the question paper. The NTA DG referred to a Supreme Court case of 2018 to award grace marks to compensate for loss of time.
“We have thoroughly analysed all the aspects and declared the results. [The] issues were confined to six centres out of 4,750, affecting only 1,600 out of 24 lakh candidates. The overall integrity of the exam was maintained nationwide, and our review found no evidence of a paper leak,” Kumar said.
However, students protesting this move have asked why the scope for grace marks was not mentioned in the bulletin issued before conducting the exam, and how they could be awarded post-facto. They have also questioned the formula for grading the grace marks.
Replying to a query, Kumar said the ‘speed of answering’ questions was considered for the grading, therefore, it depended on individual candidates. In other words, the time taken to answer the questions was taken into account to calculate the speed of answering the questions, he said.
Dr Jyothi, however, suggested that such an explanation was farcical. “One may take a fraction of a minute to answer a question and a little more to answer the other question. So how can the speed be calculated according to this criteria,” she asked.
The inflation in marks also resulted in 67 candidates scoring full marks, 720, in the examination — which meant an exceptionally high number of students have scored 100% this year — a serious outlier to the trends to previous NEET examinations in which two or three would become toppers. Also, out of 67, six were from one examination centre in Haryana alone.
Kumar tried to answer these questions saying a large number of students topped the exam because of the normalisation process (awarding grace marks) and relatively easier questions set this year.
Also, since so many students scored full marks, it was not clear as to who would be ranked first. The NTA said ‘the ascending order of the application number’ would be factored to give the ranks. This is arbitrary because students have no say in deciding the particular number assigned to the application that they fill for taking the exam.
There have been allegations of the NEET paper leak as well. The Bihar police has also arrested at least 13 people in this regard. The Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of the state police is investigating the case.
” [The] police have already seized incriminating documents and electronic devices from the possession of the accused. Investigations so far have revealed that the question papers of NEET-UG and their answers were provided to around 35 aspirants before the May 5 exam,” an EOU press release said.
On the other hand, the NTA maintains that there was no paper leak.
“We are supporting the investigating agencies and providing all the things that they need (to complete the investigation), ” Kumar said. The NTA continues to decline all the allegations of paper leak contending that it got circulated on social media platforms, after the start of the exam, by those students who had left the examination centres before the test formally concluded.
It may be mentioned here that the allegations of the NEET paper leak have surfaced in the backdrop of several other papers getting leaked in different states — an issue that many political parties raised during the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress has asked for a fair investigation into the issue. The governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka have also questioned the way NEET was conducted demanding that the exam must be cancelled. When asked about this issue, Kumar said he was unaware of these objections.
The NEET examination was conducted on May 5 at 4,750 centres across 571 cities. The result was announced on June 4, ten days before the scheduled date.
