DailyPost 2857
NEET 2024 – IRREGULARITIES?
While the battle rages is the Supreme Court on the ReNEET issue, which has gotten more and more complex by the day, and the fate of lakhs of students hangs on a thin balance of legal acumen and data analytics. How convincing a narrative is created by either of the parties would tilt the balance. Localised vs mass impact of leak and fairness remaining intact through the exam process and all candidates has been the prime concern. The decision would be out in a few days for sure. What is also of utmost importance is the callousness of the exam body, which has come out in the open during the long legal battle and public domain discourses.
What the world is supposed to believe is that every intervention by the NTA is benign and it is well within its rights to do so, being an autonomous body having the authority to conduct the exam. It can also be a natural presumption that NTA has been prone to taking such decisions. Unbridled powers is the right description of it. This year because of lots of other accentuating factors inclusive of the criminal cases, these interventions have come out in the open. Interventions which cannot be substantiated, in simple terms, should be considered an irregularities. If substantiated, a mind with a general level of fairness should get satisfied with it.
All decisions /actions of NTA pertaining to an exam should be made public. At times they might also not be aware of the impact. Three such benign interventions will go down as irregularities for sure. The first one pertains to opening the registration window for 24 hours in April 2024, long after the registration was closed. Extension still makes sense. Abrupt opening of the registration window belies all logic. Clear cut and satisfactory answers have not been put forth in the public domain. How many got registered during the time when the special window was open and their fate is another story. Who decides on it? Are pulls and pressures handled in this manner on a regular basis.
The nitty gritty of such discretionary use of powers would not come to light but for this abnormal situation. NEET 2024 has turned out to be the most followed exam in the history of competitions, for its undesirable fallouts. The second issue is of grace marks, which was awarded to large numbers of students against norms and then not made public. The grace marks smoking gun opened layer after layer, till finally it was laid to rest. The third one is regarding a question where two answers were declared to be correct. How can such nonsense be tolerated? This goes against all principles of running a fair competitive exam. If they took it so casually, even if we give the benefit of doubt, they were not able to fathom out the consequences thereof. Messed up in every way is NTA.
WHICHEVER WAY THE COURT DECIDES, NTA WAS DEALT A FATAL BLOW, WHICH IT WOULD LONG TO RECOVER FROM.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.