Expressing concern over at least 49 “errors” creeping into the Tamil version of the NEET 2018 question paper, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday directed issue of notice to both the Centre and the State for filing of counter-affidavits.
A division bench of Justices C.T. Selvam and A. M. Basheer Ahamed took cognisance of the submission that there was no uniformity in the questions, and the key words were not translated properly.
Senior counsel N.G.R. Prasad appearing for the petitioner, Rajya Sabha MP T. K. Rangarajan, said that key words in the Tamil question paper were wrongly translated, resulting in the question itself being wrong. The wrong translation confused the students and made it difficult for them to answer the questions, he said.
Pointing out discrepancies in the overall conduct of NEET, he said in Bihar, the total number of passed students was more than those who had appeared. He added that to challenge a response against OMR grading, one had to pay ₹1,000, making it hard for students from a humble background.
Additional Advocate General K. Chellapandian said that the preliminary key answers had been released so that students could raise grievances, if any.
Taking note of the submission, the court questioned whether a formal body could be so unsure of the answers that it had to take suggestions, make corrections, if any, and then release the results.
If this was the case, then it was worrying, observed the court. It directed the Centre and the State to file their counter-affidavits and posted the case for further hearing on June 27.
Mr. Rangarajan filed the public interest litigation petition seeking grant of additional marks to Tamil medium students, since the technical terms in the question paper were incorrectly translated.
