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The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the National Testing Agency to revise its merit list by treating the answer suggested by a panel of three experts of IIT Delhi to a controversial physics question as the correct one.
The NTA had treated the two options as correct answers to the Physics question and had granted four marks to those examinees who had marked these options.
Now, only those students, whose answers match the one given by IIT-Delhi, will get four marks for the question and over four lakh National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate aspirants, who answered the other option as per the old NCERT textbook, will lose five marks instead, leading to a reshuffle in their ranks.
A bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud dismissed the pleas seeking cancellation and re-test of the controversy-ridden exam, holding that there was no evidence on record to conclude that it was "vitiated" on account of "systemic breach" of its sanctity.
On the issue of the controversial physics question that was asked in the examination, the bench accepted the report of the experts of IIT Delhi that there was only one right answer and not two as alleged by some lawyers.
"In view of the experts' determination, we have no manner of doubt with regard to the correct option... we accept the IIT Delhi report and accordingly the NTA shall re-tally the NEET UG result on the basis that option 4 represents the only correct answer to the question," it said.
In its report, IIT Delhi had said only one of the options - "atoms are electrically neutral as they contain an equal number of positive and negative charges" - to a question is correct.
Lawyer Tanvi Dubey, who appeared for one of the top rankers, said that the student scored 720 out of 720 and her ranks will go down drastically if only one answer is treated as the correct one.
She said both answers should be considered correct. The plea was rejected by the bench.
Earlier in the day, a panel of IIT Delhi experts told the bench that there was only one right answer and not two.
The bench CJI referred to the contents of the report and said, "We have received the IIT Delhi report. IIT Director Rangan Banerjee...constituted a committee from the Department of Physics and they say a team of three experts examined the question. They say that option four is the correct answer."
The CJI further said that option four, which says "Statement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect', is correct".
"The committee has opined clearly that there was only one option which is option four (4). So the National Testing Agency was correct in its answer key which was option four (4)," the bench said.
On Monday, the bench faced a piquant situation over a physics question during the day-long arguments.
The contention led to the court asking the IIT-D director to constitute a team of three subject experts.
PTI also sought the response of Delhi University Associate Professor and IIT, Madras Alumni Naveen Gaur on the controversial question.
The question reads: Given below are two statements: Statement I: Atoms are electrically neutral as they contain an equal number of positive and negative charges. Statement II: Atoms of each element are stable and emit their characteristic spectrum.
"In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:
(1) Statement I is incorrect but Statement II is correct.
(2) Both Statement I and Statement II are correct.
(3) Both Statement I and Statement II are incorrect.
(4) Statement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect.
Professor Gaur, who teaches at Dayal Singh College, said option four is the only correct answer.
More than 23.33 lakh students had taken the test on May 5 at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 overseas.
The NEET-UG is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country.