NEET-UG 2024: Over 4 lakh students to lose four marks over Physics question no. 29

As many as 44 candidates (out of 61) who scored 100% marks, are among those affected.

Published on: Jul 23, 2024, 19:10:55 IST

By HT News Desk, New Delhi

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More than four lakh candidates are set to lose four marks each after an expert panel from IIT-Delhi informed the Supreme Court that ‘question no. 29’ of the Physics section of the NEET-UG 2024 exam had only one correct answer and not two, according to NDTV.

Protests erupted across the country amid allegations of paper leaks and arbitrary allowance of grace marks in NEET-UG 2024. (HT Photo)

Simultaneously, this also means that as many as 44 out of 61 students who scored a perfect 720/720 will lose the four marks, leaving only 17 students to share AIR (all-India rank) 1.

Also Read: Supreme Court refuses to order re-test for NEET-UG 2024, says ‘systematic breach of exam’ not established

The anomaly was pointed to the Supreme Court during a hearing on Monday, prompting the Chief Justice-led bench to set up a team of experts from the prestigious institute to look into the issue. The bench asked the committee to submit its response by the next day, i.e. today.

On Tuesday, the panel told the apex court that the question had only one correct answer: option 4.

The contentious question was: "Given below are two statements: Statement I: Atoms are electrically neutral as they contain equal number of positive and negative charges. Statement II: Atoms of each element are stable and emit their characteristic spectrum.

Also Read: 5 reasons why Supreme Court refused to cancel NEET-UG 2024

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."

"The committee has opined clearly that there was only one option which is option four (4). So the National Testing Agency was correct in its answer key which was option four (4)," the Supreme Court ruled.

According to the lawyers, one set of aspirants got minus five for the correct response, the second lot got four marks for another correct response, while the third group was of those who skipped the question for either want of knowledge or due to the fear of negative marks.

This would lead to a ‘significant impact’ on the merit list of the successful candidates, the bench was told.

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