HC adjourns plea seeking compensatory marks for Tamil medium NEET aspirants, rank list likely today
The rank list for Tamil Nadu NEET 2018 students is likely to be released today as the Madras High Court yesterday adjourned a petition seeking compensatory marks for Tamil medium students who had appeared for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2018.
While hearing the counter petition filed by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Central and state governments, the bench stated that the students were clearly informed by the board that in case of ambiguity in the questions in the regional language, the English version will be final, said a New Indian Express report.
According to media reports, there were at least 49 errors in the Tamil version of the question paper. The court yesterday adjourned the petition saying the PIL should have been filed prior to the publishing of the answer keys.
A bench comprising Justices CT Selvam and AM Basheer Ahamed, however, criticised the CBSE and the government saying that the mistakes in the question paper were not mere ambiguity.
“Why is there an ambiguity? If there is a Tamil version of the NEET question paper, why should the Tamil medium students rely on the English version of the questions,” observed Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court.
“This seems to be an escape clause on the cost of the students,” the media reports quoted the HC as saying.
The judges slammed the board by asking whether the marks of Tamil students in the examination would be decided based on their proficiency in English.
The Central Board of Secondary Education CBSE had released the answer key for NEET 2018 on May 25 and the candidates were given chance to raise objections on the answer key/ OMR sheet/ test booklet code till May 27.
Over 13 lakh candidates appeared for the medical entrance exam that was conducted on May 6.
The experts had suggested a drop in the cut-off considering the difficulty level of the NEET paper. The qualifying percentage for the unreserved category was 50 percent and the qualifying score as per qualification percentile (out of 720) was 131.
For OBC/ SC/ ST category, it was 107 and the qualifying percentage was 40 percent (107 percentile). Similarly, for physically challenged, it was 118.
