Mumbai: A group of parents met with the state medical education minister and the commissioner of medical education, to express concern over the alleged irregularities in the recently declared results of the National Eligibility-Cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG).
Objections Of Parents
The parents objected to the National Testing Agency's (NTA) decision to allot compensatory marks to over 1,563 aspirants for loss of time. They also expressed suspicion over six students from a single examination centre and with the same seat number sequence securing cent per cent marks and claimed a mismatch between the actual scores and answers written in the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets of some candidates.
They demanded that the testing body release the answer sheets of high-scoring students, and requested the state authorities to put the admission process on hold until the issue was resolved.
Discontent Caused To Candidates
The NEET results, which were declared on Tuesday, had sparked widespread discontent among candidates across the country. The earlier-than-scheduled declaration of results, claims of paper leaks at some centres, the relatively large number of high scorers and the award of compensatory marks have led to accusations of malpractice in one of the largest national entrance exams, taken by more than 23 lakh students.
The NTA had, on Thursday, issued a detailed explanation addressing these allegations. It claimed that the compensatory marks were awarded to the students following complaints and petitions from some aspirants, who had claimed losing time.
The agency said that the additional marks were calculated based on a formula devised by a Supreme Court (SC) order related to the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). It also said that the rise in cut-offs and high scorers was due to the competitive nature of the examinations and high-performance standards of the students.
Parents Response To National Testing Agency
The parents, however, said that the NTA had no authority to introduce any compensatory marking for time delay, as there was no such provision in the information brochure of the exam. They claimed that the results had caused a great loss to candidates from Maharashtra.
Our candidates can't go to India's topmost institutes and they will also not get all-India quota seats in Maharashtra, parents said. Because of this, students who would have generally secured government seats will not even get private seats in Maharashtra, claims the letter submitted by the aggrieved parents to the authorities.
Ajit Katkar, one of the parents who was part of the delegation, said, "There appears to be large-scale rigging. It seems that the NTA has favoured some people. How come there are so many high scorers? They need to release the OMR sheets of top scorers. There's no transparency about paper leaks. This is an injustice to genuine students."
State Medical Education Minister & Director Of Medical Education & Research, Maharashtra On The Issue
State Medical Education Minister Hasan Mushrif, expressed support to the complaining parents. "I believe that the NEET exam is riddled with corruption. The CLAT judgement has no bearing on this case as it was an online exam, which had faced some technical glitches. Due to these results, students from Maharashtra won't get seats in either government or private colleges. Our stand is that this exam must be cancelled," he said.
However, Dileep Mhaisekar, Director of Medical Education and Research, Maharashtra, said that "there were no plans to stop the counselling process. We have forwarded the parents grievance to the Centre. But we will have to follow the national counselling schedule, otherwise students from the state will lose the all-India seats," he said.
