NEET PG: Supreme Court Lists Plea Concerning Marks Normalisation, Increased Transparency In Evaluation Process On May 20

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on May 20, a batch of petitions seeking measures to ensure increased transparency in NEET-PG Exams and the issue of normalisation of marks.

While at the outset, the bench of CJI Gavai and Justice AG Masih remarked that the pleas mainly concerned NEET-PG 2024 and the matter now seem infructuous however, the counsel for the petitioner highlighted that the present batch concerns the larger issues of mark normalisation and correction of answer keys and discrepancies in marks.

The counsel for the National Board of Education (NBE) informed the bench that the admissions for NEET PG 2024 have now been completed and the sessions have also begun. She added that the rules pertaining to normalisation of marks have also been changed. 

Notably, under the system of normalisation of marks, the exam papers have a different set of questions for different dates of the same exam. To neutralise the effect of tougher or easier papers, a normalisation formula is applied in calculating the scores. The merit list and ranking is based upon the normalisation formula applied. 

She also informed that since the NEET PG is a super-speciality exam taken by around 2.4 Lakh candidates each year, "the questions at that level of appropriate difficulty are very limited." 

The bench agreed to relist the matter with another similar matter, which is coming up for hearing on May 20, relating to the challenge to the system of normalisation of marks. 

The matter will now be heard on May 20. 

Earlier, the bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud asked NBE why the exam pattern was changed just 3 days before the scheduled exam. 

To which the counsel for NBE replied that they "haven't done anything new or unusual"

CJI Chandrachud replied, "It is very unusual! Three days before the examinations? Students will have a meltdown!"

The bench had issued notice in the petition and sought reply from NBE on September 20, 2024. 

Background

The NEET-PG 2024 Exas was conducted on August 11 by the NBE, the results of which were declared on August 23 with the counselling commencing on September 20.

The petitioners have raised issues of lack of transparency and arbitrary last-minute changes in the conduct of the 2024 Exam.

The plea states that the exam format was changed just one month before the scheduled date and the exam was converted into a two (2) session examination with separate papers for each session which is against NBE's guidelines of having one common examination.

The plea elaborated on the issue of non-disclosure of exam question-answers :

"There is a clear lack of transparency in conduct of examinations of NEET PG 2024 since none of the documents which can allow a student to check his/her performance are supplied by the Respondents i.e. neither the (a) question paper, nor (b) the Response sheet filled in by candidates, nor (c) Answer Key is supplied to the students, and merely a score card has been provided along with list of attempted correctly/attempted wrongly sections. The students on perusal of the score cards have found discrepancy in the total number of questions that they attempted which are found to be different than what is stated in the score cards issued to them. Thus, there is a basic flaw in the conduct of the examinations which goes to the root of the matter. However, there is no redressal of the above, and an unfettered power has been vested in the Respondents to conduct examinations, without the necessary checks and balances."

Grievance has also been raised against the new marks normalization method.

"A new procedure for normalization of scores (based on a system applied in AIIMS which has a different kind of paper) was introduced by the Respondents for calculation of scores obtained by candidates in Session 1 and session 2 and for tie breaking it would be counted to the 7th decimal, which is completely arbitrary as two classes of candidates have been created without any reasonable nexus with object being sought to be achieved i.e. getting the best suited candidates their opted specializations."

"The normalisation procedure has completely altered the ranks that students expected to obtain based on their performance in the examination and it has led to clumping of students at each decimal, which would not have happened in case of counting of actual marks. Thus, the specialities will be exhausted on account of some superficial criteria prescribed by the Respondents, which is not reflective of the best candidates available."

Case Details : ISHIKA JAIN AND ORS. Versus NATIONAL BOARD OF EXAMINATION AND ORS. W.P.(C) No. 583/2024