'NTA Accepted Grace Marks Were Wrong': Physics Wallah CEO Alakh Pandey on NEET-UG Results

New Delhi: After the Centre notified the Supreme Court of its decision to cancel the grace marks given to 1,563 candidates of NEET-UG 2024, petitioner and CEO of Physics Wallah Alakh Pandey said that the National Testing Agency (NTA), the exam authority, has accepted its mistake. 

The Centre informed the apex court that the scorecards of those students with grace marks have been cancelled and they can appear for a re-test on June 23, whose result will come on or before June 30 so that counselling which is set to begin in July is not affected. 

Remarking on the SC hearing on NEET-UG 2024 results, Pandey said, “Today, NTA accepted in front of the Supreme Court that the grace marks given to the students were wrong and they agree that this created dissatisfaction among the students and they agreed that they will remove the grace marks...Re-examination of those 1,563 students who got grace marks will be done on 23rd June.” 

"NTA agreed in front of the SC that the grace marks they awarded were wrong. The question is if NTA has other discrepancies that we are unaware of. So, there is a trust issue with NTA...The issue of paper leak is open and hearing on that will continue..."

The apex court was hearing petitions related to the controversy surrounding the NEET-UG, 2024 examination for admission to MBBS, BDS, and other courses.

What NTA Promised In Court? 

The NTA said that the committee formed to analyse the exam result has decided to cancel the scorecards of 1,563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates who were given grace marks and these students will be given the option to take a re-test, the SC informed. 

Counselling for admission in MBBS, BDS, and other courses will start on July 6, NTA said.

Besides controversy around grace marks, there were allegations of paper leak in NEET-UG 2024, held on May 5 across different centres in the court. Defending the charges, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that there is no evidence of a paper leak in the NEET-UG exam. 

Further, the apex court took NTA's statement into record and reiterated that it would not stay the NEET UG counselling process. “Counselling will go on and we will not stop it. If the exam goes then everything goes in totality so nothing to fear,” the top court said.