Impact on 48% of Students Who Missed NEET-UG Retest: What Lies Ahead

New Delhi: At the NEET-UG re-test, officials from the National Testing Agency (NTA) claimed that 48 per cent of the 1,563 students who were given grace marks did not show up. Of these, only 813 students attended the re-test at seven centres across the country, while 750 were absent. Additionally, the NTA debarred 17 candidates who had taken the exam on May 5 at centres in Bihar. Earlier, the agency had debarred 63 candidates for using unfair means during the exam. Another 30 candidates from Godhra, Gujarat, were debarred when the exam was held on Saturday.  

What Will Happen to Students Who Skipped Re-test?

Students who did not attend the re-test will have to accept their original scores without the grace marks. “At least 52 per cent—813 out of 1,563 candidates—appeared for the retest on Sunday. While no candidate appeared in Chandigarh, the number of candidates appearing from Chhattisgarh was 291, Gujarat one, Haryana 287 and Meghalaya 234,” a senior National Testing Agency (NTA) official said.

NEET Scam: What is The Controversy

For the unversed, there was a controversy over grace marks awarded to students to make up for the loss of time at six centres where the NEET-UG examination started late on May 5. The Centre later told the apex court that the grace marks were being scrapped and these 1,563 students would be given an option to appear for a retest.

There were allegations that the grace marks led to inflation of marks and contributed to six of the grace mark candidates from the same centre in Haryana scoring a perfect 720 along with 61 others.

NEET Scam: CBI Takes Over The Probe

The CBI took over five new cases of alleged malpractices in the medical entrance exam NEET-UG that were being investigated by police in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bihar, as the political storm intensified with the opposition gearing up to confront the government in Parliament on the paper leak issue. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra police also arrested a Zilla Parishad school teacher from Latur and registered a case against four persons after it emerged that a racket was being operated to help NEET students willing to pay money to crack the exam.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider abolishing NEET, the national-level medical entrance exam introduced in 2013, and reverting to the system of states conducting the exam in the wake of the paper leak row. Several opposition MPs said on the first day of the 18th Lok Sabha that the government will have to answer on the issue in Parliament as it is causing hardship to lakhs of students.

As Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan proceeded to take oath in Lok Sabha, members of the opposition shouted "NEET, NEET".

The Education Ministry had also set up a seven-member panel headed by former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan to review the NTA's functioning and recommend exam reforms and it was slated to meet Monday evening.

Pradhan had asserted that it was the first of a series of steps to improve the efficiency of the examination process, put an end to all possible malpractices, strengthen data security protocols and overhaul and reform the NTA.

The Centre also made public the rules under the recently notified anti-paper leak law, mandating the National Recruitment Agency (NRA) to prepare norms, standards and guidelines for the computer-based tests among others.

The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Rules, 2024 have provisions for "engagement of services of other government agencies by public examination authority", "preparations of norms, standards and guidelines" and "reporting of incidents of unfair means or offences" among others.

Officials at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said the central agency has re-registered one case each from Gujarat and Bihar and three cases from Rajasthan as its own FIR. It is also likely to take up another case from Maharashtra's Latur.

Barring the case from Bihar, the other four appear to be isolated incidents of impersonation and cheating by local officials, invigilators and candidates, the officials said.

The CBI has already registered its own FIR in connection with the case on a reference from the Union education ministry to conduct a comprehensive probe, they said.

After taking over these new cases, the CBI is now probing six cases of alleged irregularities in NEET-UG.

The Economic Offences Unit of the Bihar Police arrested five more persons on Sunday, taking the total arrests to 18.

The Centre has drawn flak over alleged irregularities in NEET-UG and UGC-NET.

In a letter to the PM, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee called for strong action against those involved in the alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG exam. "I strongly urge upon you to consider and take immediate steps to restore the previous system of conducting this examination by the state governments and abolish the NEET examination. This will help restore normalcy and confidence of the aspirant students in the system,” she said.

While the medical entrance exam question paper was allegedly leaked, according to an investigation by the Bihar Police, UGC-NET was cancelled a day after it was conducted following input that the exam's integrity had been compromised. Both matters are now being investigated by the CBI.

Two other exams -- NEET-PG and CSIR-UGC NET -- have been cancelled by the government amid the row.