The CPI on July 11 welcomed the Madras High Court verdict directing the CBSE to grant 196 marks in the Tamil version of this year's NEET to those who took the exam for medical admissions in the regional language.
 

The CPI State secretary R Mutharasan also urged the CBSE to implement the order. "The State Committee of the CPI welcomes the High Court order," he said in a statement. Referring to reports of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) mulling appealing against the order, he said this would amount to "confirming the social injustice meted out" to the medical aspirants. He said CBSE should not do so and urged the board to implement the High Court order.

The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had on Tuesday ordered the CBSE to grant 196 marks--4 marks each for 49 erroneous questions--in the Tamil version of this year's NEET to those who took the exam in the regional language. Passing the orders on a public interest litigation, a division bench directed CBSE to consequently revise the list of eligible candidates and publish it afresh.

The petitioner, senior CPI-M leader and Rajya Sabha MP T K Rangarajan had sought full marks for the 49 questions, saying key words in Tamil questions were wrongly translated from English and this caused confusion for the students. There were 180 questions with a total mark of 720 in the NEET.

The judges said the students who took the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for admission to the medical and dental colleges in Tamil should be suitably compensated to provide a level-playing ground. The CBSE conducted the NEET on May 6 in 136 cities in 11 languages, the results of which were announced on June 4. In Tamil Nadu, about 1.07 lakh candidates took the test across 170 centres in 10 cities.