According to officials, the National Testing Agency announced revised rank list for medical entrance examination NEET-UG on Monday.
This revised list came out after a re-test was organized for candidates who had previously been given some marks to make up for wasted time since the examination held late at six centers on 5th May.
In a retest ordered by the Supreme Court and conducted across seven centres on June 23, 48% of all the 1,563 applicants were absent.
National Testing Agency (NTA) officials reported that others opted to take their marks without grace while 813 out of the total number of candidates i.e.1563 appeared in the retest.
On an individual basis, Chandigarh which had only two candidates did not appear at all. The Jhajjar center under probe achieved an attendance rate of 58% with 287 out of 494 students participating in the retest.
Allegations emerged as well that those grace marks caused distortion in scores making six students from one centre in Haryana have perfect scores of 720 and so did 61 others beside them. The highest court therefore ordered for cancellation of these grace marks and gave another chance to sit for the test.
“At least 52 percent which is also eight hundred thirteen (813) out of a total number i.e. 1563 took part in this repeat test. Chandigarh did not have any candidate while Chhattisgarh all had only two ninety one (291), Meghalaya only two thirty four (234), Haryana has two eighty seven (287), Gujarat has one,’ said an NTA senior official.
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) was held on May 5 across approximately 4750 centres with about 24 million candidates taking it. The results which were due on June 14th came out on the fourth day of June as answer sheet evaluation was completed earlier.
This year, 67 students scored a maximum of 720 in these tests like never before in the history of NTA and no doubt it is clear that they included six students from one center in Haryana which raises eyebrows on their source through grace marks.
NEET-UG is conducted by NTA for admission to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses offered in government as well as private colleges.
There have been protests and legal battles over allegations of various types of irregularities including paper leakages with some sections calling for a complete retest.
The Centre has defended itself saying that there may have been “localised” incidents but it cannot jeopardise the bright careers of lakhs who had cleared the exams.
