What comes undone is best redone. The latest development in the prolonged National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2024 saga has played out in the court, and will answer the question raised initially — the unusually high number of toppers this year. The Supreme Court of India’s ruling on the right answer to a particular physics question in the NEET paper, based on the expert opinion of IIT Delhi professionals, has brought down the number of toppers from 61 to a more reasonable number — 17. The wrong answer for the disputed question was chosen reportedly by four lakh students, including 44 in the list of toppers. As a result, all these students will lose five marks each. Ruling that there could be only one correct answer, the Court directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to revise the scores based on the correct answer. It also emerged during the hearing that the wrong answer for the question was actually present in the older (until 2021) NCERT textbooks. The Court had earlier refused to cancel the entire NEET, which over 23 lakh applicants took. While the scheduled date of counselling, July 24, is past already, and with the NTA having to re-tally the marks with the revised answer, the counselling has been delayed again, but will take place as soon as possible.
While the scenario, as it stands today, seems ostensibly resolved sufficiently to let the process move forward, the truth is that an unprecedented number of violations have occurred in a manner that vitiated, possibly for good, the faith in NEET as a fail-safe entrance route. From charges of paper leaks, giving out the wrong question papers, damaged answer keys, impersonation by students, and an analysis of marks that showed an unusually high number of toppers from certain centres in the country, NEET-UG 2024 has been a string of bad news this year. Notably, the interventions to right the course have come mostly from the judiciary, with the executive stopping short of initiating significant or decisive action required to clean its Augean stables. For starters, the extraordinary emphasis that has come to be placed on medicine as a career choice, with over 23 lakh students hoping to compete for over one lakh MBBS seats, will have to be dialled down, with a healthy promotion of other scientific streams as viable career options. The government also has no option but to unwind the entire spool, and cast it out if it must, reorienting all systems so that the next NEET can be conducted professionally, and with adequate safeguards in place to prevent malpractice or inefficiency.
