Calcutta HC Asks NEET Authorities To Reserve One Seat In A Petition Filed

NEET 2018 has been the centre of attention for a single reason – errors in the paper. Every year, thousands of students challenge the paper for wrong answers, incorrect translation and many more reasons. Many errors have been reported in the regional language papers (read: Tamil Question Paper Had 60 Errors In 49 Questions). NEET 2018 has been no different.

With a few days to go for NEET 2018 Result, in a recent hearing, High Court of Calcutta has taken some action for something similar which was reported. The vacation bench of the court has asked the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) authorities to reserve a seat for an examinee till a regular bench decides on her petition. NEET is conducted by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

NEET 2018 Aspirant, Apala Debnath from Kalna had challenged the 2018 error-ridden Bengali question paper. She alleged that the Bengali version of the NEET 2018 paper had 180 mistakes. She pointed out that the English version of the same paper had no mistake. According to her, it was a huge setback for her and the students who had attempted the paper in the Bengali language.

Arguing that the translation errors in the question papers were “negligent, irresponsible and motivated” and that the test booklet contained 180 translation mistakes. The information bulletin released by CBSE says that the English translation would have to be accepted as the final version if the translation was confusing.

Hence examinees like her had to compare the Bengali questions with English versions in the three-hour exam window, which affected her and other candidates. She also sought a ban on the publication of result.

In response, the HC vacation bench, initially in an interim order last week, had asked the NEET authorities to respond to the petition within a week after the HC reconvened on June 4. However now, they have asked the conducting authorities to reserve a seat for her till a regular bench decides on her petition challenging the 2018 error-ridden Bengali question paper.

Justice Protik Prakash Banerjee passed this order for the candidate. Last week, he had given an interim order, seeking a report on why the Bengali question paper had so many errors. In this regard, he asked that if the intention of the authorities was to allow only those people for the exam who knew English well then they could have simply asked people not knowing English not to apply. This interim order had been passed to ensure that people who wrote the paper in Bengali were not discriminated against for question-paper errors.

One senior NEET official has said that they have yet had to examine the court order. They say that students have to study MBBS in English. That is why a lot of stress is given in English. They blame the Language experts for this glitch. According to them, high chances are there that for some scientific terms, the translation becomes difficult and hence the problem comes up. They have said that they will reply soon to the order.