CBSE Filed Appeal in Supreme Court against Madras HC Orders for NEET 2018

CBSE has moved to the Supreme Court against the Madras High court orders of granting 196 grace marks for Tamil NEET 2018 paper.

17 July 2018: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has filed an appeal against the Madras High Court order issued on 10 July. The Madurai Bench of Madras HC has directed CBSE to give 196 marks to all students who have appeared for the NEET 2018 exam in the Tamil language. There is no update on when the Supreme Court will take the hearing of the case. However, it has given a hope to the students that things will be sorted soon and the second round of AIQ counselling will begin consequently.

As tweeted by Dr. Amit Gupta, noted Education Activist, “CBSE today filed a case in Supreme Court against the Chennai High Court (Madurai Bench) order on providing grace marks in #NEET for Tamil medium students. The case will be listed on an urgent basis.”

CBSE is challenging the Madras High Court decision on the grounds that the official notification has stated that in case of discrepancies in the regional languages question paper, English version would be treated as final.

About Madras HC Order

The order was released as there were 49 erroneous questions in the NEET question paper in the Tamil language. A PIL was filed stating that a number of words were translated incorrectly in the Tamil NEET question paper. Such errors were found in a total of 49 questions carrying 4 marks each. Thus, the court has asked the exam conducting authority, CBSE, to grant grace marks to all the beneficiaries and release a new merit list after awarding the marks.

The decision would have affected 24,000 students who have taken the NEET exam in the Tamil language. 196 grace marks mean those who have secured zero marks initially will also qualify the exam and this will also alter the initial merit list. Candidates who have already secured government medical colleges through the first round of NEET counselling were worried about whether they will get government seats after the release of fresh merit list.

NEET AIQ Counselling Halted

Meanwhile, in line with the Madras High Court orders, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) has postponed the second round of counselling for All India Quota (AIQ) seats. Candidates are advised to stay in touch with the official websites for further updates.