Supreme Court says no grace marks for NEET aspirants who took test in Tamil
The Supreme Court has over-ruled the Madras High Court order allowing grace marks to students, who took the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test or NEET in Tamil. The High Court had ordered CBSE to give grace marks to examinees, after mistakes were found in translations of the question paper.
The Supreme Court, responding to a petition by the CBSE against grace marks, said the High Court's order "will put other students in a disadvantageous position." The High Court "can't dole out marks like this and the CBSE has to be more careful in future," said the top court.
CPM lawmaker TK Rangarajan, on whose petition the High Court had ordered giving additional marks, told the Supreme Court that students who took the exam in Tamil, were at a disadvantage. If they had to look at the English text simultaneously, they would lose time said Mr Rangarajan, adding that the CBSE had accepted the error and didn't take any action.
On August 7, the Supreme Court will take up the larger issue of how to rectify such mistakes.
The CBSE in its petition said that the High Court's order would upset the ongoing admission process. The CBSE told the court that if there was any ambiguity in the bilingual texts of question papers, then the English version would be treated as final.
In the NEET exam conducted on May 6, the question paper in Tamil had 49 erroneous questions. The Madras High Court had ordered CBSE to grant four marks each for these questions, whether the student attempted the question or not. The decision could have affected 24,000 students and would have had bearings on the seat allotment as well.