New Delhi:
Supreme Court has stayed the Madras High Court order which had directed CBSE to award 196 grace marks to students who appeared for NEET exam in Tamil and release a fresh merit list. Students who had qualified in the NEET exam had been waiting for the Supreme Court decision on the matter with bated breath since after the Madras High Court order the 2nd phase of the All India Quota counselling as well as several state quota counselling processes had been halted.
The matter pertains to a petition filed in Madras High Court where the petitioner alleged that 49 questions in the NEET question paper in Tamil had errors thus confusing students who had opted for Tamil as the medium of the examination. In response, Madras High Court had asked CBSE to award 196 marks, 4 each for the 49 erroneous questions, and release revised merit list.
CBSE challenged the decision in Supreme Court, which had listed the matter for hearing today. Supreme Court has stayed the Madras High Court decision.
A bench of Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao stayed the order and issued notice on a plea of the CBSE challenging the high court order. The bench has posted the matter for hearing after two weeks and has asked the concerned parties to come up with a solution to deal with the situation. The bench said, “We cannot dole out marks in this fashion.”
The bench observed that if the Madras HC decision is followed, then students who appeared for the NEET exam in Tamil will have an upper hand.
