NEET-UG 2024: Physics Wallah CEO Moves to Supreme Court to Challenge NTA

A popular name in the online educational market, Alakh Pandey aka the CEO of Physics Wallah, an ed-tech company has recently approached the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the National Testing Agency on the grounds of their implying gracing marks in an OMR-based competitive exam, National Entrance Cum-Eligibility Test ( NEET ).

The undergraduate medical examination commonly NEET is an all-India entrance test for admission in medical colleges across India. However, 2024 faced several backlashes regarding conducting this particular exam as reports are against the National Testing Agency allegedly having 67 toppers, giving gracing marks, and high cut-off.

Pandey, who has been outspoken about the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) (NEET-UG) examination controversy, has filed a public interest litigation in this regard and sought a probe into the matter by an independent committee.

Yesterday, Advocate J Sai Deepak mentioned the writ petition filed on June 9, before a vacation bench of the Supreme Court for an urgent listing. In response, the bench, headed by Justice Vikram Nath, told the lawyer to mention the matter before the Registry so that the listing request could be routed through the Chief Justice of India.

What Happened in the NEET-UG 2024 Examination?

As per the marking scheme, a candidate gets 4 marks for a correct answer and loses one mark for a wrong one. If a question is not attempted by the candidate, then no mark is rewarded for it. However, two NEET exam candidates scored 719 and 718 marks with AIR 68 and 69 respectively.

Similarly, the NEET result was declared to be announced on 14th June but without any prior explanation, they suddenly changed the date and announced it to be declared on 4th June- 10 days before, the general election results out date.

During the examination period, several allegations against paper leaks were coming across the country. A group of young men was caught in red-hand with NEET exam paper in Bihar, apart from that in Maharastra, Haryana also the allegations of paper leaks were coming. But, things never turned around to be this much suspicious. The black curtain opened and people were alleging and students were protesting for the corruption that happened to them.

It has also been argued that several toppers are from the same institution by noticing their serial numbers, it can be confirmed. The high cut-offs were because of the unexpected ranks, as 67 students topped the NEET-UG 2024.

i. Discrepancies of National Testing Agency

An individual said that NEET 2024 has been a legitimate scam this year. The registration date for form fill-up was opened from 9th Feb 2024 to 16th March but, “All of a sudden, on April 8, NTA decided to re-open the online registrations for 2 days from April 9 to 10 due to ‘Stake Holder’s Requests’. When you have already done the registration two times,(16th March was extended) why do you need to re-open your registration form? That too after one month?

In a center in Rajasthan, students reported that the center gave them the question paper with pre-marked answers and then took it back. Hindi medium students received English paper, an X account holder said.

ii. What Did NTA Clarify?

In a statement on Thursday, the NTA said that changes made in NCERT textbooks and grace marks for losing time at the examination centers are some of the reasons behind the students scoring higher marks.

“Out of the 67 candidates who got 720/720 marks, 44 are on account of the revision in one answer key of Physics and six are on account of compensatory marks for loss of time,” the NTA said amid an outcry about the fact that 67 students shared the same rank in the exam. The NTA also denied the allegations that as many as six toppers were from the same center in Haryana.

“It is pertinent to mention that the toppers are from across the country,” the NTA said.

The clarification came amid allegations of irregularities in the medical entrance exam NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) — conducted on May 5 at 4,750 centers in 571 cities, including 14 abroad — and inflation of marks.

In a post on X, an aspirant said that 67 students scoring 720 out of 720 marks in the results released after the NEET exam paper leak raised suspicion. This is playing with the future of lakhs of candidates in the country, and increasing anger among the students. The government should conduct a high-level investigation.

The increase in cutoff reflects the competitive nature of the examination and the higher performance standards achieved by the candidates this year, a senior NTA official said in the statement about the higher cut-off marks.

Alakh Pandey’s Public Interest Litigation

Pandey’s petition questions the NTA’s decision to award grace marks as “arbitrary”. His lawyer stated that Pandey has collected representations from about 20,000 students showing that about 70 to 80 marks have been awarded in grace marks randomly to at least 1,500 students.

Another NEET candidate has filed a petition challenging the award of grace marks to compensate for the alleged loss of time during the exams. He argued that the “normalization formula” to award grace marks at best, if at all, can only extend to the number of questions that may be left unanswered in proportion to the loss of time, given that each question has equal mark weightage therefore equal time allocation to answer each question can be assumed.

On June 9, another petition was filed in the Supreme Court to recall the NEET-UG 2024 results & the conduct of a fresh examination. The petitioners have alleged arbitrariness in the grant of grace marks. In this regard, it was contended that high marks of 718 & 719 out of 720 secured by several students were “statistically impossible”.

It was alleged that the grant of grace marks by the National Testing Agency, purportedly due to delay during the exam, was a mala fide exercise to give “backdoor entry” to certain students. The petitioners also raised suspicions about the fact that 67 students from one particular center got full 720 marks.