The National Testing Agency (NTA) has announced that they will be re-conducting the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, Undergraduate (NEET UG) 2024 exam for over 1563 aspirants on June 23. This decision comes after the Union Government informed the Supreme Court that the grace marks awarded to these candidates will be cancelled, and they will have the option to take a re-test. The affected candidates were granted compensatory marks in the NEET-UG exam held on May 5, 2024, due to a ‘normalization formula,’ causing controversy and protests among students.
The decision to grant grace marks to the 1563 candidates was challenged in court on the grounds that they were not allowed the full time to write the exam at their respective centers. A subsequent committee formed by the NTA discussed the issue between June 10 to June 12 and recommended a re-examination for the affected students. The actual scores of these candidates without grace marks will now be revealed to them.
The re-examination is scheduled for June 23, and the results will be declared on June 30. The NTA reassured that the counseling session scheduled on July 6 will not be disrupted. The decision to cancel the grace marks and offer a re-test was welcomed by students, teachers, and various opposition parties who had demanded a retest and a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into alleged paper leaks and discrepancies.
The NTA’s decision to award grace marks due to loss of time, an easy question, and the increased number of registered students led to a record number of toppers in the NEET UG exam this year. With 17 students scoring a perfect 720/720 and six students benefiting from grace marks, a total of 44 students were crowned with AIR 1 due to an incorrect physics question in the exam. This year, a record 23.81 lakh students registered for NEET UG, signaling an increased interest in medical education among students across the country.
