Defies Logic As To How Candidates Scoring Higher In All India List Scored Lower In State List: MP HC Directs Fresh Preparation Of State List for NEET-PG 2024 In-Service Candidates

The High Court also stated that it completely defied logic as to how a candidate who had scored higher in comparison to another candidate in the All India rank list had scored lower in the State List in comparison to the same candidate.

The Petitioners, who are all in-service candidates and had appeared in the NEET – Post Graduate 2024 (NEET-PG) examination approached the High Court seeking a direction to the Respondents to redraw the State Merit list for the in-service candidates.

The Division Bench comprising Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Justice Vinay Saraf said, “It is unfathomable that a candidate in the same examination is higher in one list and lower in another list vis a vis the same candidate.If the ranking in the All India List merit list is based on relative performance, then the relative performance of two candidates cannot change when they are separated and placed in the State List.”

Advocate Aditya Sanghi represented the Petitioner while Additional Advocate General Janhvi Pandit represented the Respondent-State.

The dispute, in this case, pertained to the State Merit List for the State of Madhya Pradesh. As per the Petitioners who are in-service candidates of the State of Madhya Pradesh , their merit in the All India List is higher than some of the other in-service candidates but in the State List they have been shown lower in the Merit. In the State of Madhya Pradesh, in-service candidates who have served in rural/hard posting are entitled to 10%, 20% and 30% incentivised marks in percentage of their raw scores based on the period of completed service in rural/hard area.

The Bench noticed that the methodology that was adopted for drawing up the State Specific Rank as submitted by NBEMS was never notified.What had been notified was only the methodology for drawing up the All India Merit List. NBEMS had prepared the All India Merit List adopting the normalisation process and a comparative merit list was prepared by applying the percentile method. For preparation of the State List, they went back to the raw scores pre normalisation and added the incentivised marks to the raw scores and then applied the normalisation process.

Explaining that the candidates have to be granted incentivised marks on their normalised scores to create a level playing field, the Bench observed that the hypothesis mentioned in their note was fallacious. The hypothesis began with a presumption that 30% or 20% or 10% addition is being sought by the petitioners to be done on the percentile, which was not the case. Further, NBEMS had granted incentivised marks on the raw scores prior to normalisation, which was where the error had crept in.

“Since, NBEMS has added 30% incentive to the raw scores pre normalisation, it has led to a compounded benefit to candidates of one of the Shifts of approximately 1.6736401% i.e. an incentive of approximately 31.6736401% instead of 30% and similarly 21.6736401% and 10.6736401%respectively. In an examination where the result is calculated upto 7 decimals, this makes a world of a difference”, the Bench said.

The Bench further highlighted the fallacy in the method adopted by the NBEMS and observed that as per NBEMS, overall merit position as percentile is the relative performance of all those who appeared for the examination. So,as per the All India Merit List A1 and C1 in their respective relative performance to A2 and C2 had performed better. However, in the State Merit list A2 and C2 were shown to have performed better. This, according to the Bench, was clearly not reconcilable.

In such circumstances the Bench allowed the Petition, quashed the State Merit List for the NEET-PG 2024 examination for the State of Madhya Pradesh and held, “The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences is directed to prepare the State Merit List afresh by awarding the incentivised marks to the in-service candidates, not on their raw scores but on their normalised scores. The exercise be carried out as expeditiously as possible.”

Cause Title: Dr. Abhishek Shukla and Others v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others [ Case No.- Writ Petition No. 37078 of 2024]

Appearance

Petitioners: Advocates Aditya Sanghi, Poonam Sonkar

Respondents: Additional Advocate General Janhvi Pandit for State, Senior Advocate Ajay Mishra, Advocate Gaurav Tiwari for National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences

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