The Chief Justice DY Chandrachud along with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra presided over a case where petitioners contested the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) decision to accept two options as correct answers to a particular question.

The petitioners argued that students were instructed by the NTA to follow the latest edition of the NCERT textbook. They claimed that option 4 should be considered correct for Question No. 19 in Test Booklet Code S3, whereas according to the old NCERT syllabus, option 2 was deemed correct.

In reference to the report from a three-member expert committee led by IIT Delhi’s Director, Professor Rangan Banerjee, the Chief Justice noted that the committee identified option 4 as the correct answer in their report, as per the Court’s earlier directive.

Consequently, the bench instructed the NTA to adopt the expert committee’s conclusion and recognize option 4 as the sole correct answer. They directed the NTA to adjust the results of the NEET-UG 2024 exam accordingly.

The Court clarified that options 2 and 4 were mutually exclusive and cannot both be considered correct. They endorsed the IIT Delhi report, directing the NTA to revise the NEET-UG 2024 results based on option 4 being recognized as the correct answer. They did not specify the question number, as it could vary due to examination procedures.

It was highlighted that 4,20,774 candidates chose option 2 (based on the old NCERT edition answer), while 9,28,379 candidates opted for option 4. The Solicitor General representing the Union mentioned that NTA’s decision to award marks for option 2 was influenced by numerous representations from students who relied on older textbooks used by their siblings for exam preparation. 44 out of 61 students who scored 720/720 marks benefited from the grace mark awarded for this question.