BREAKING| Supreme Court Orders IIT Delhi Expert Team to Resolve NEET-UG Question Dispute

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Director of IIT Delhi to constitute a team of three experts to provide a definitive answer to a contentious question from the NEET-UG 2024 exam. This decision came during today's hearing on the case, where arguments were presented about the ambiguity of a particular question. The hearing will resume tomorrow, July 23.

 Ambiguous Question Challenge

A counsel for a petitioner, who scored 711 marks, challenged a question that had ambiguous options, leading the petitioner to avoid attempting it. The National Testing Agency (NTA) awarded full marks to candidates who selected either of the two options, which the counsel argued was unfair. The petitioner contended that had NTA not given marks for both options, she would have ranked higher than her current position of 311.

The counsel argued, "NTA says if there are two correct options, attempt any. But I cannot make the determination that there are two correct answers at the time of the exam. I cannot assume that there are two correct answers and marks will be awarded for both." Citing the Kanpur University v. Samir Gupta judgment, the counsel maintained that ambiguous questions should be deleted entirely.

The debate intensified as the counsel pointed out that 44 students received full marks due to the grace marks for this ambiguous question. Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud acknowledged the strength of the argument, noting that the NTA's instructions were to follow the latest NCERT edition, which only supported one of the options.

"Option 4 is the correct answer as per the latest NCERT edition. Those who answered option 2 cannot be given full marks. There, I think they may have a point," remarked the CJI.

NEET-UG Hearing in Supreme Court| LIVE Updates

Solicitor General (SG) defended the NTA's decision, stating, "We received representations from many poor students who used their elder siblings' NCERT books to study." This sparked a response from the petitioner's counsel, who questioned the availability of the older NCERT versions since 2019.

The CJI expressed concern over the broad impact of the decision, noting that over 4 lakh students had benefited from the current grading method. The court also heard issues raised by another counsel about students in some centers in Meghalaya not receiving grace marks or re-test options, despite suffering a loss of time during the exam.

In concluding today's session, the bench, led by CJI Chandrachud, decided to seek expert opinion on the correct answer for the disputed question. The order states, "We request the Director of IIT Delhi to constitute a team of three experts of the subject concerned. The expert team is requested to formulate the opinion on the correct option and remit the opinion to the Registrar by 12 noon tomorrow."

The Registrar General has been tasked with communicating this order to ensure that the expert team can expedite their assessment and provide a timely resolution to this critical issue.

This follows a series of hearings, where the court examined allegations of paper leaks and irregularities.