NEET UG: Supreme Court dismisses a students’ petition alleging an error in the Hindi translation of the question paper

Supreme Court dismissed a writ case brought by 22 NEET-UG applicants seeking recalculation of their results due to an alleged error in the Hind translation of a physics question in the NEET-UG 2021, on Tuesday.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, AS Bopanna, and Vikram Nath dismissed the petition after a panel of three independent experts appointed by the National Testing Agency determined that the answer for the Hindi and English versions was the same.

NEET candidates filed the writ petition to challenge the “discrepancy and patent error” in Question No. 2 of Section A (Physics), where the word “amplitude of current” was deleted when translating the question from English to Hindi. The petitioners claim that the Hindi word “dhaara” employed in the question does not correspond to “amplitude.”

On the previous hearing date, November 25, the Solicitor General informed the bench that the problem had been addressed by three unbiased experts, who stated that the answer would be the same regardless of the purported disagreement.

The bench, however, asked the Solicitor General if the subject may be re-examined by a new panel of experts. That was agreed upon by the SG. The Solicitor General informed the bench today that the NTA formed a new committee of three academics from IIT Gauhati, Delhi Technological University, and the National Physical Laboratory to evaluate the responses in both the Hindi and English versions of the question.

All three agreed that whether the question is asked in English or Hindi, the response is the same. “They claimed that the “dhara” here was unimportant. I dislike winning against pupils. However, in this matter, experts have opined,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta stated.

Archana Pathak is a lawyer. Dave, who spoke on behalf of the petitioners, contended that “dhaara” does not refer to “amplitude.” She stated that the word for “amplitude” in the Class 12 Physics book, which is the “Bible” for NEET students, is “aayam.”

“There is no reason for us to intervene when experts have opined. We could have checked to determine if it was a legal document. We must draw the line at anything that is not within our purview “, stated Justice Chandrachud.

The petition was dismissed by the bench in the following manner:

In response to the students’ concerns, the first respondent, which is the agency responsible with the conduct of the NEET UG 2021, had the matter reviewed again by three subject experts. In that respect, it would not be open to this court to substitute its own point of view, particularly in the field of physics. We are powerless to intervene in the circumstances, despite our careful consideration of the topic. “The petition is denied.”

Petition Specifications

Because of this omission, candidates who attempted the question based on the Hindi translation received a different response than candidates who attempted the question based on the English question.

Young aspiring doctors who took the NEET UG 2021 exam complained that both the erroneous and correct answers had been presented as options to the multiple choice questions.

In this regard, relief was sought for the issuing of instructions to the National Testing Agency (“Respondent No 1”) to delete Question 2 of Section A (Physics) in question paper bearing code P2 and its related questions in other sets of NEET UG 2021 question papers and release new results.

Petitioners further requested a declaration that NEET UG 2021 was erroneous, faulty, defective, and discriminatory, as well as a violation of Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Indian Constitution of 1950.

“The NTA, disregard of the error, issued an answer key based only on the English translation of the question, putting Hindi-speaking applicants at a disadvantage in comparison to their English-speaking counterparts. The mismatch was caused by the NTA’s practise of only accepting the English version of the questions as final. The question paper contained an instruction to that effect, stating that “In case of any ambiguity in translation of any question, English version shall be treated as final,” the petition stated. “However, there was no ambiguity in the impugned question and the same was an error, because the English version and the Hindi version both were different questions with different answers.”

The petitioners also claimed that the Hindi and English versions of the impugned question were complete standalone questions, leading Hindi-speaking candidates to conclude that the impugned question was clear and could be addressed without referring to its corresponding English counterpart.

It was also argued that the contested question carried 4 marks and that one incorrect response resulted in a loss of 5 marks because NEET includes negative marking.

“As a result of the contradiction in the stated question, the Hindi Speaking students/states have been placed at a disadvantageous position, pushing them back by thousands of years and jeopardising their future,” petitioners argued.

The petition was submitted by Advocate on Record Archana Pathak Dave and was written by Advocate(s) Kumar Prashant and Manish Sharma.

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