Giving Two Correct Options For One Question In NEET-UG 2024 Exam Illegal : Candidate's Plea In Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday (June 20) issued notice in a plea which raised the allegation that one of the questions framed by the National Testing Agency(NTA) for the NEET-UG 2024 exam held on May 5 this year was "ambiguous" as it had two correct options.

A vacation bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and SVN Bhatti heard the plea preferred by the NEET-UG candidate (through his mother). The petitioner challenges the "ambiguous question" framed by the NTA, which caused an inconsistency between the instructions given in the examination question booklet and the answer key published by the NTA on 30.05.2024.

It was stated that the petitioner had left the ambiguous question unattempted to avoid negative marking and loss of rank as it contained two correct options which was against the NTA's instruction of having only one correct option mentioned in the question booklet. Thus, a direction was sought to the National Testing Agency to correct and re-publish the NEET (UG) 2024 results, ranks, and percentiles based on the revised marks.

The instructions printed on the examination question booklet mentioned that each question had only one correct option. However, it is the case of the petitioner that Question No. 19 in Test Booklet Code S3 had two correct options i.e., options 2 and 4, therefore to avoid negative marking the petitioner left question 19 unattempted and took the risk of letting go of a question instead of losing marks on account of negative marking.

Petitioner further supplemented that the results declared by the NTA considered both options 2 and 4 of Question 19 as correct which is contrary to the instructions printed on the question paper booklet.

She claimed that the answer key published by the NTA awarded marks to all the students who chose either of the alleged correct answers, thereby benefitting those who guessed an answer or inevitably marked the answer they thought was right and disproportionately penalizing those candidates who followed the instructions meticulously and chose not to answer Question Number 19 due to ambiguity.

“This act of the Respondent (NTA) of framing an ambiguous question that resulted in 2 options being marked as correct is contrary to the instructions that stated only one option could be correct. Moreover, it is discriminatory against those candidates, including the Petitioner, who adhered to the instruction and did not mark an answer for Question No. 19 as it was ambiguous. The Respondent (NTA), in doing so, has acted arbitrarily and violated Articles 14, 15, and 19 (1)(a) of the Indian Constitution.”, the petitioner stated.

The petitioner called for judicial intervention into the alleged unfair evaluation done by the NTA for accepting two correct answers for a single question as it has prejudiced the Petitioner's prospects of getting the better rank by one mark thereby impacting the Petitioner's chances of securing admission to a prestigious medical college.

The Counsel for the petitioner requested the Court to list the matter before the start of the Counseling, but the Court refused to do so and posted the matter to July 8, 2024.  The Court observed that the admissions will be subject to the final outcome of the petitions and if exam is set aside, then consequentially, the counselling will also be invalidated.

The Petitioner  prayed for the grant of the following reliefs:-

I. “Pass a further writ, order or direction awarding equal marks to all those who didn't attempt the impugned question (Question No. 19 of Booklet S3), as it has been done for those who attempted either of the two correct answers;

II. Pass a writ, order and/or direction declaring the award of arbitrary grace marks to candidates unequally as arbitrary and illegal.

III. Pass a further writ, order or direction setting aside the portion of the NTA Information Bulletin that arbitrarily discriminates between wrong questions and questions wrongly having two wrong answers;

IV. Pass a further writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus directing the National Testing Agency to correct and re-publish the NEET (UG) 2024 results, ranks, and percentiles based on the revised marks;

V. Pass any such other and further orders as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper.”

To recap, several petitions were filed before the Supreme Court challenging the conduct of the NEET-UG Examination 2024. The petitioners called for judicial intervention into the alleged paper leak, award of grace marks against the time loss, and other irregularities/discrepancies that took place during the conduct of the NEET-UG Examination held on June 5, 2024.

On previous hearings, the Top Court had issued notices in the pleas praying for the cancelation/re-test and clarified that there shall be no stay on the counseling of the NEET-UG scheduled to begin in July 2024. 

The court had expressed concern over the alleged discrepancy that occurred in the conduct of the examination where it orally remarked that even '0.001% negligence' in conducting the NEET-UG 2024 exams be looked into with all seriousness considering the immense labor put in by the candidate for the prestigious examination.

AoR Abiha Zaidi and Adv. Suriti Chowdhary appeared for the petitioner.

Case Title: SAMAIRA KALRA VERSUS NATIONAL TESTING AGENCY, Diary No. 27311-2024