“Marks Deducted As Per Instructions”: Rajasthan HC Denies Relief To NEET Candidate Who Filled Two Answers For Same Question

Rajasthan High Court rejects the petition of a NEET candidate seeking an increase in marks and consequent revision in rank, alleging unjust and arbitrary deduction of marks despite marking the correct answer in the OMR Sheet.

The bench of Justice Sameer Jain highlighted that firstly, the student had raised the objection after the termination of the window for raising such objections set by the National Testing Agency (“NTA”) and secondly, she had marked two answers for the concerned question which was against the explicit instructions given for filling the OMR Sheet.

The petitioner had received 645/720 marks, however, it was alleged by her that she had marked the correct answer for one of the questions as per the final answer key published by the NTA and hence deserved an increase of 5 marks in her score and also revision of her rank accordingly.

Opposing this prayer, the counsel for the respondents, first, raised a preliminary objection submitting that an opportunity was already provided to the candidates to raise any challenge to the answer key or the scorecard with a cut-off date for filing such an objection. However, no grievance was raised by the petitioner within the prescribed time, hence, the petition was not tenable.

Secondly, the counsel argued that as per the information bulletin providing the rules and regulations of the examination, no rechecking or re-evaluation of the answer sheet was permissible since the OMR sheets were evaluated by machines with utmost care and caution.

Thirdly, the counsel submitted that the exam had to be attempted strictly in adherence with the instructions which categorically mentioned that the candidates had to darken only the correct answer in the OMR sheet. However, the answer sheet of the candidate revealed that she had darkened two circles for the question, and it was due to that reason, the marks were deducted.

The Court agreed with all the arguments put forth by the counsel for the respondents and decided to dismiss the petition of the candidate. Apart from observing that the objection was not raised within the prescribed time and there was no provision for re-evaluation of the answer sheet, the Court stressed that the candidate himself had marked two options for the same question.

The Court observed that the candidates were provided with clear DOs and DON'Ts while filling the OMR Sheets and were also warned about filling the OMR sheets correctly. Since the OMR sheets were evaluated by machines, any mistakes in filling the same resulted in the non-evaluation of incorrectly marked question(s).

Hence, in the petitioner's case, filling two circles for the question, as opposed to the instruction of filling only one correct answer, the deduction of marks was as per the instructions only.

The Court referred to the case of Jitendra Sharma & Ors. v State of Rajasthan in which the candidates had left the column for question booklet number unfilled in the OMRs and owing to that their OMR sheets were not evaluated. The Court dismissed the petition filed by such candidates seeking an opportunity to correct this defect so that their OMRs could be evaluated and ruled that,

“The appellants, who were negligent in no treading the instructions properly and not filling the column meant for corresponding question booklet set, could not have been granted indulgence to fill up the column in the OMR sheets subsequently. If the OMR sheets are permitted to be opened and corrected in this manner, it may result in making fairness and transparency in the examination process questionable. For the parity of reasons, the OMR sheet cannot be permitted to be evaluated physically either.”

Similarly, the Court observed that the marks were deducted owing to non-adherence of clear instructions by the candidate and accordingly, the petition was dismissed.

Title: Neha Kumar Jogi v the Union of India & Anr.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Raj) 230

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