-By ArdorComm News Network
July 15, 2024
The Hazaribag school centre, under scrutiny for an alleged NEET-UG paper leak, is back in the news. Out of 1,000 CUET-UG aspirants for whom the National Testing Agency (NTA) is conducting a retest on July 19, 250 candidates are from Oasis Public School in Hazaribag. According to NTA sources, the retest is necessary due to the distribution of question papers in a language not chosen by the candidates and issues with “missing data” for some aspirants.
The agency announced the retest schedule on Sunday but did not address the delay in the results, which are already over two weeks late. The final answer key has also not been released. The official notification on Sunday stated that grievances submitted by candidates up to June 30, and complaints sent to rescuetug@nta.ac.in between July 7-9 (before 05.00pm) have been reviewed. The re-examination will be conducted for the affected candidates on July 19 in computer-based test mode.
The public notice did not specify the number of candidates or the nature of the grievances. However, sources indicate multiple issues, including “missing data” for some aspirants. According to NTA sources, the “1,000 candidates are spread across six states, and some grievances include time lost due to the distribution of the wrong question paper.”
The distribution of incorrect question papers also occurred during the NEET-UG exam on May 5, leading NTA to grant grace marks for the lost time. However, following opposition and pleas in Supreme Court against the inflation of marks, NTA withdrew the results and announced a retest for 1,563 candidates, 813 of whom attended the exam on June 23.
Sources also mentioned that NTA has not been able to retrieve data for some candidates. “Some data are missing, so these candidates will have to take the test again on July 19,” said the source, without revealing how the data was misplaced.
This raises questions about how long NTA will take to release the results. Initially scheduled for June 30, the results were delayed due to the paper leak allegations involving NEET-UG and UGC-NET. On July 7, the agency released the provisional answer key for CUET-UG 2024, indicating a retest for candidates if grievances were validated. “Initially, it was decided to announce the results for the remaining candidates before the retest, and subsequently for the rest. However, a final decision is yet to be made,” said the source, indicating further uncertainty.
Delhi University has already indicated that a three-week delay in results would delay the university’s academic calendar by two weeks. It now appears the delay will extend to nearly four weeks, further affecting the academic calendar for the first-year undergraduate students for the 262 participating universities.