New Delhi: The three-member expert committee, set up by the IIT-Delhi, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that option 4 is the correct answer for the ambiguous question, which is said to have two correct answers.
The director of IIT-Delhi told the bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud hearing a batch of petitions related to the controversial medical entrance exam, NEET-UG 2024, that ‘option 4 is the correct answer for the physics paper. Option 4 is statement 1 is correct but statement 2 is incorrect’.
Explaining why statement 2 is incorrect, he said because ‘radioactive elements’ atoms are unstable. The CJI said the committee has opined clearly that there was only 1 option which is option 4. So NTA was correct in its answer key which was option 4,’ said CJI, on the basis of the IIT Delhi report.
The Supreme yesterday (July 22) directed the IIT-Delhi to constitute a three-member expert committee to resolve a contentious question in the NEET –UG 2024 paper which was said to have two correct answers to the NCERT physics question. This question alone led to 44 students getting the top rank.On the court’s directions the director, IIT, constituted a three-member committee from the dept. of Physics which after examining the question concluded that option 4 is the correct answer which is that statement 1 is correct but statement 2 incorrect.
The Supreme Court yesterday tasked IIT-Delhi with resolving a contentious question in the NEET-UG 2024 Physics exam. The court directed IIT-Delhi’s director to appoint three top professors to solve the issue within 24 hours, a decision that could impact the scores of over four lakh candidates, including 44 students who achieved perfect scores.
An officer from the CBI also appeared before the court and explained the investigation being carried out by them.The CBI officer stated that some gadgets of the involved gang were burnt, and a few others were recovered yesterday, which will now be investigated. Senior advocate Hooda told the court that the paper leak took place through WhatsApp so it was impossible that it was confined only to Patna in Bihar.“The paper solvers were taken from Rajasthan. The Dissemination of the solved paper was through WhatsApp. It is not possible that the leak is confined to Patna,” he said.
Hooda further said that if the apex court is “not considering re-NEET, at least qualified people should be asked to re-take the exam, which will be about 13 lakh people.” The bench comprising Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra is hearing nearly 40 pleas related to the alleged irregularities on the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, Undergraduate (NEET UG) 2024.
Some petitioners have demanded a re-test as there was a paper leak in the examination.The Court had also directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to publish the results of all NEET-UG candidates on July 20 on their website by masking the identity of the students. The CJI inquired about one of the contentious centers at Hazaribagh.
To this Solicitor General Tushar Mehta replied, “Hazaribagh Center has a 4.61% success rate this year. About Belgavi Center, the SG said that one student shifted to Belgavi because they said there was some huge potential for mass copying.Mehta debunked the claim that cluster toppers increased success rates and said this year it is only 5.3%.
The SG explained that more students qualifying for the exam doesn’t mean more admissions. He also pointed out that the examples of Sikar and Kota having higher qualification rates cannot be used to make decision for aspirants across the country as these places are preparation hubs.
“The word which is being used by the newspapers- ‘Factory’ is possibly taken from the web series ‘Kota factory, Mehta said.When a child from Kota sits for the actual examination, actually it is their 200th examination,” he added. SG submitted the city wise qualification ratio. Increased cut off may mean hardworking students, he said.
“The cutoff this year was 164 (for unreserved category). Last year the cut of was 137, which indicates that this year number of students increased and secondly students were way more hardworking and thirdly the syllabus was sliced out, Mehta said. SG also explained the concept of percentile “The narrative going on is that for centres like Rajkot more than 30 candidates were qualified. General impression was that if you’re qualified you’re getting admission in the course of your choice.”
“There has always been and also for this year, a system of coming to a percentile. Percentile is the figure, after we get the result, it (result) is fed into the computer system and we request we want 50% percentile. So it gave us the figure of 164.”
Students unnecessarily tensed over wrong narrative, SG emphasized “We must satisfy your conscience from stats and figures and not through some social media or telegram video. Top 100 students are spread over 95 centre, 56 cities and 18 states and UTs,” said the SG. Advocate Hooda argued over lack of CCTV cameras at exam centres “NTA says they were live monitoring the exam, but in Sawai Madhopur their systems were not working. So their argument that they have CCTV monitoring is destroyed,” Hooda said.
To this, SG replied that the counsel has raised suspicion for 2-5 centres only. “Your lordships are examining an issue where approximately 24 lakhs students are involved.Total centres 4750- this would be relevant figure in examining a pan-India cross country Impact,” SG said.
Senior advocate Narendra Hooda explained that in a few centres, namely Sawai Madhavpur, Rajasthan and Ghaziabad the question paper was given in different medium of language.”In Sawai Madhavput they detected on social media at 2:30 pm. It is their affidavit on record. At 2 pm the exam started, questions were given, and students raised grievance that this is not my medium. NTA got to know at 4:30 pm the same the same day, Hooda said.
CJI Chandrachud said that those candidates who have some individual grievances can move to the High Courts. Here we will address the issue whether the paper leak had a widespread impact then only a re-test can be ordered, the CJI said.
