813 of 1,563 candidates awarded grace marks in NEET-UG appear for retest

New Delhi: Even as a row continues to unfold around the irregularities of entrance exams, especially the NEET and NET exams, only 813 of the 1,563 students who were to appear for a retest due to grace marks in the NEET-UG exam took the test.

Ministry sources said that tests took place across seven centres around the country. Additionally, in Bihar, due to cheating and malpractices as many as 17 students have been served notices across 13 centres.

The government is preparing to face a volley of charges in the Special Session of the Parliament, which starts on Monday, over irregularities in the exams. The ministry on Saturday sacked NTA chief Subodh Kumar Singh and passed the case of paper leaks in Bihar to the CBI, with officials saying that officials of the agency were under the scanner.

Ministry sources said that the maximum number of students who were taking the NEET-UG retest after a Supreme Court order were from Haryana – retests took place in two centres in Jhajjar. In one centre, of 312 students who were to take the retest, only 178 (57.05 per cent) appeared, and in another 109 of 182 students (59.89 per cent) students appeared.

In Meghalaya’s Tura, only 234 of the 464 students (50.4 per cent) appeared for the retest on Sunday, and in Gujarat, a lone student took the test. In Chandigarh, none of the 2 students took the test, and in Chhattisgarh, in one centre, 115 of the 185 students appeared (62.16 per cent) and in another, 176 of 412 students (42 per cent) appeared.

Ministry officials said that across 13 of Patna’s 70 centres, 17 students have been served notice for malpractices. “Of the 19 students identified, notice was served to 17 students because in two cases the name and roll numbers did not match,” ministry sources said.

Officials also said that in the NEET-UG test, 1 lakh top-ranking students were spread out across 4,650 centres, which they said pointed that students from more areas were doing better.

The government is expecting a stormy start to the first session of the 18th Lok sabha over the issue. Officials, however, cited a 1986 recommendation which asked for an exam body to be formed. “The CBSE had been doing this for years; it is only in 2017 that the exam body was finally formed,” an official said.

While the NEET-UG exams were first under the scanner due to grace marks given to 1,563 students, cases of paper leaks have emerged from Bihar; the education ministry has termed them “localised” instances. The UGC-NET exams were then cancelled, following which the CSIR-UGC-NET and the NEET-PG exams were cancelled because the government felt the exam process was compromised.