NEET-UG 2024: SC Asks NTA To Revise NEET-UG 2024 Merit List As Per IIT Delhi Response To Physics Question

NEET-UG 2024: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court asked the National Testing Agency, NTA to revise the NEET UG 2024 Merit List by accepting as true the solution offered by a trio of IIT Delhi specialists to a contentious physics subject. Only the candidates who have answered as per the answers released by the IIT-Delhi will get four marks and the candidates who have asked as per the old NCERT Textbooks, have their five marks deducted. This process will re-arrange their ranks. Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud’s bench rejected the appeals for the controversial exam to be cancelled and retaken, ruling that insufficient evidence was presented to draw the conclusion that the exam was “vitiated” due to a “systemic breach” of its sanctity.

On the controversial issue of the physics question paper, the report of the experts of IIT Delhi has been accepted by the bench and has confirmed that there was only one correct answer and not two as said by some lawyers. It said, “In view of the experts’ determination, we have no manner of doubt with regard to the correct option… we accept the IIT Delhi report and accordingly the NTA shall re-tally the NEET UG result on the basis that option 4 represents the only correct answer to the question,”. The report indicated that only one option to one of the questions i.e., atoms are electrically neutral as they contain an equal number of positive and negative charges, was correct.

One of the top rankers, Lawyer Tanvi Dubey said, that if only one answer is treated correctly then it decreases the student’s ranks drastically who have got 720 out of 720 marks. She said that both the answers and correct and both should be treated as correct answers, but the plea was rejected by the bench. Before, an IIT Delhi expert reported to the bench that there was only one correct answer to the question and not two. The bench CJI referred to the report deeply and said, “We have received the IIT Delhi report. IIT Director Rangan Banerjee…constituted a committee from the Department of Physics and they say a team of three experts examined the question. They say that option four is the correct answer.” CJI also cleared that the fourth option that was, “Statement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect” is correct and all the other are incorrect.

Bench further said, “The committee has opined clearly that there was only one option which is option four (4). So the National Testing Agency (NTA) was correct in its answer key which was option four (4),”

During the daylong conversations on Monday, the bench was presented with an extremely sharp conflict on a Physics question. Due to the dispute, the IIT-D director was asked by the court to assemble a group of three subject matter experts. PTI also asked Naveen Gaur, an IIT Madras alumnus and associate professor at Delhi University, to respond to the contentious question.

The question was, Given below are two statements:
Statement I: Atoms are electrically neutral as they contain an equal number of positive and negative charges.
Statement II: Atoms of each element are stable and emit their characteristic spectrum.
In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:
(1) Statement I is incorrect but Statement II is correct.
(2) Both Statement I and Statement II are correct.
(3) Both Statement I and Statement II are incorrect.
(4) Statement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect

One of the teachers at Dayal Singh College, Professor Gaur said option four is the only correct answer to the above question.

This year, over 23.33 lakh candidates appeared for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 held on May 5, 2024, at a total of 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 overseas. The test is organised to select candidates for admission into government and private institutions across the country in programs such as MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and others.