The Delhi High Court on Friday sought stand of the National Testing Agency (NTA) in a plea challenging the award of grace marks to candidates for one of the questions in NEET (UG) Examination held on May 05.

A vacation bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma was hearing a plea moved by 17 year old Shreyansi Thakur (through her mother) who appeared in the examination.

The court granted time to NTA's counsel to obtain instructions in the matter and listed it for hearing next on Wednesday.

Thakur is aggrieved by the answer key provided for Question No. 29 in Test Booklet Code R5. It is her case that the question ambiguously suggested two correct answers contrary to the instructions, thereby adversely impacting her score.

“The answer key published by the Respondent awards marks to all the students who chose either of the alleged correct answers, thereby benefitting those who guessed an answer or inevitably marked the answer they thought was right. This act of the Respondent is discriminatory against those candidates who adhered to the instructions and did not mark an answer for Question No. 29 as it had two correct answers,” the plea states.

It adds: “This is an abhorrent violation of rights of all candidates who do not benefit from this arbitrariness and end up losing their ranks (rank differences amount to about 20,000 and more) and therefore the potential of securing a better future.”

Thakur has sought a direction to award equal marks to all those who did not attempt the question. She also seeks setting aside of the portion of the NTA Information Bulletin, alleging that it arbitrarily discriminates between wrong questions and questions wrongly having two wrong answers.

The plea also seeks a direction on the NTA to re-publish the NEET (UG) 2024 results, ranks and percentiles based on the revised marks.

The Petitioner is represented through Mr. Gauhar Mirza, Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas along with Suriti Chowdhary and Ms. Abiha Zaidi.

Title: Shreyansi Thakur v. National Testing Agency