Pune: The National Testing Agency (NTA)’s investigation on Saturday concluded that the NEET OMR sheets in question were manipulated, hours after students raised allegations of discrepancies in their entrance exam results.The NTA officials stated that in one case, the OMR sheet was “completely AI-generated,” while in the other, the document was tampered with. Following the probe, the NTA warned that it would initiate legal action against candidates found to be spreading false allegations or using manipulated documents to discredit the examination process.The controversy began when a student from Pune alleged he had received two different OMR sheets: one downloaded from the NTA website on the night of July 13 and another emailed to him on July 15. Although both had his name, they contained different responses.“When we checked the OMR my son downloaded on July 13 against the official answer key, we calculated a score of 707 out of 720. But when the results were announced, he received just 217 marks based on the second OMR sheet,” the boy’s father said.In a separate case in Beed, a student claimed that while his OMR sheet matched the one uploaded by the NTA, he was awarded only 95 marks. He alleged that based on the final answer key, his actual score should have been 522.After examining the documents provided by the Pune student, the NTA officials declared the OMR sheet in question to be AI-generated. Regarding the Beed student’s case, officials concluded that the OMR sheet had been tampered with.The agency posted on its official X handle, “NTA is closely monitoring and scrutinising all complaints. In the wake of many OMR sheets submitted for scrutiny turning out to be fake/AI generated, students and parents are advised to submit only original OMRs for scrutiny. Any fake/AI generated OMR may invite legal action against the complainant.”Out of approximately 20 lakh students who appeared for the examination, 11.21 lakh candidates qualified for admission to undergraduate medical, dental, AYUSH and allied programmes.
