The National Testing Agency (NTA) today released a detailed statement on the alleged wrongdoings in the NEET results announced on June 4. The statement, with clarifications on all the main allegations was released on Thursday evening by the Agency, which is mandated to conduct the medical entrance exam. NEET aspirants and many coaching centres have claimed that the grace marks provided by the NTA as part of “NEET scam”. The allegations were trending on various social media platforms for the last three days since the agency released the entrance exam results for more than 24 lakh candidates who appeared for the test on May 5.

On the compensatory marks

The NTA said few writ petitions were filed by the candidates of NEET 2024 before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, Delhi, and Chhattisgarh, raising concerns of loss of exam time during the conduct of NEET 2024 at few exam centres.

The concerns raised by the candidates, according to NTA, through the Writ Petitions and representations submitted to NTA required careful consideration for redressal. “Therefore, a Grievance Redressal Committee consisting of eminent experts from the field of examination and academia, was constituted to look into such grievances/representations and to submit its recommendations,” the NTA said.

The Committee considered representations on the basis of factual reports of the functionaries and CCTV footages from concerned exam centres, and in the process the loss of examination time was ascertained and such candidates were compensated with marks based on their answering efficiency and time lost, as per the formula established by the Supreme Court, it said. “1563 candidates were compensated for the loss of time and the revised marks of such candidates vary from -20 to 720 marks. Amongst these, the score of two candidates also happens to be 718 and 719 marks respectively due to compensatory marks. On the analysis of the CCTV footage, it was ascertained that the integrity of the examination was not compromised at these Centres,” the statement added.

On Cut-off of NEET 2024

The NTA said the cutoff scores are determined based on the overall performance of candidates each year and the increase in cutoff reflects the competitive nature of the examination and the higher performance standards achieved by the candidates this year.

Cut-offs and average marks of qualified candidates (out of 720) vary each year, as illustrated below:

Toppers in NEET 2024

The number of candidates who appeared in 2023 was 20,38,596, while the number of candidates who appeared in 2024 increased to 23,33,297 and the increase in candidates naturally led to an increase in high scorers due to a larger pool of candidates, claims the NTA.

“NTA received 13,373 challenges to the provisional answer key of one question in Physics. Due to the differences in the old and new editions of the NCERT textbook, the Subject Experts) held that two options be taken as correct in place of one option for this Question. Out of the 67 candidates who got 720/720 marks, 44 are on account of the revision in one Answer Key of Physics and 06 are on account of compensatory marks for loss of time It is pertinent to mention that the toppers are from across the country, as highlighted in the Press Release dated 04.06.2024,” it said.

Declaration of NEET Results

As per practice, the NTA said, the result of examinations including NEET (UG) is declared at the earliest on the completion of the necessary checks in the result processing post the Answer Key challenge period. “NTA managed to declare the Results of about 23 lakh candidates within 30 days. The Result of JEE (Main) 2024 Session-1 was declared in 11 days and of Session-2 (combined with Session – 1) was declared in 15 days. The Result of NEET (UG) 2024 has been processed as per the established procedure,” it added.

Regarding Unfair Means (UFM) cases

The NTA said action taken in UFM cases are in accordance with existing rules, including the cancellation of candidature and debarment from future examinations of NTA. “NTA has registered cases against impersonators and some cases have been registered by the State Police. NTA has been extending support, wherever required, to the agencies in investigating cases pertaining to NEET (UG) 2024. While the outcome of the investigation in aforesaid cases is awaited, NTA has categorically denied any case of paper leak. NTA also issued a detailed Press Release on 06 May 2024 stating that there has not been any paper leak as was being circulated on social media. The same stand has been reiterated and NTA maintains that the integrity of the examination was not compromised,” it added.