The grace marks awarded to 1,563 students in the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test conducted on May 5 will be cancelled, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Thursday, Live Law reported.
This submission came amid the court hearing a batch of petitions alleging question paper leaks, the “arbitrary” awarding of grace marks and other irregularities in the entrance examination, which is conducted by the National Testing Agency for admission to undergraduate medical courses.
On Thursday, a vacation bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was told by advocate Kanu Agarwal, representing the Centre, that these 1,563 candidates will be sent their actual scores without the grace marks.
They will be given the option to either appear for a re-examination or retain their original scores, which will exclude the compensatory marks that had been given to them earlier, Agarwal said.
Agarwal said that a panel, which was formed by the National Testing Agency on June 8 to look into the grievances of those who appeared in the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test, took the decision a day earlier to “allay the fears of the students”.
According to the panel, the grace marks given to the 1,563 students due to a loss of time resulted in a “skewed situation” as the compensation was limited only to the unattempted questions, Live Law reported.
The panel therefore recommended the cancellation of the current scorecards of these students and the issuing of new ones without taking into account the compensatory marks, Agarwal said.
The bench noted the submission of the National Testing Agency, represented by Senior Advocate Naresh Kaushik, that the re-examination will likely be held on June 23 and the results will be published before June 30 so that the counselling process scheduled on July 6 can begin. This is the process through which authorities guide students on choosing colleges and universities.
The court then set aside one petition challenging the grant of grace marks.
The results of the entrance examination were announced on June 4. Subsequently, several aspirants alleged that an inflation of marks had led to 67 candidates securing the top rank, including six from the same examination centre. Some reports also alleged that at some centres, the question paper was leaked before the examination.
The National Testing Agency denied the allegations, saying that a revision in the answer key of the physics paper, along with compensatory marks provided for the loss of writing time, led to 67 candidates securing the top rank.
The pleas
Three petitions were filed before the Supreme Court alleging irregularities in the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test conducted in early May.
The first petition claimed that the decision by the National Testing Agency to award grace marks to around 1,500 students was “arbitrary”, Live Law reported. The court disposed the matter regarding the grace marks in the petition. However, the other grievances mentioned in the petition are pending.
A second petition sought the recalling of the results of the examination and the conduct of a fresh one. The petitioners raised the alleged arbitrariness in the grant of grace marks. They claimed that the grace marks granted to some students was a “malafide exercise” to give “backdoor entry” to them.
On Thursday, the bench issued a notice on this petition.
The third petition challenged the awarding of grace marks as compensation for alleged loss of time during the examination, Live Law reported. The court disposed the petition on Thursday.
On June 11, the Supreme Court sought the responses of the Centre and the National Testing Agency to another petition alleging question paper leaks and other irregularities in the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test.
However, the court refused to stay the counselling process and posted the matter for July 8.
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