In Chandigarh, where just two candidates had registered for the retest, neither turned up.The Jhajjar centre, which was under the scanner as several high rankers had emerged from there, registered 58% attendance, with 287 of the 494 candidates taking the retest.
A senior NTA official said, “At least 52%, 813 out of 1,563 candidates, appeared for the retest on Sunday. No candidates appeared in Chandigarh, while the numbers were 291 in Chhattisgarh, one in Gujarat, 287 in Haryana, and 234 in Meghalaya.”
The NTA said based on inputs, 17 candidates who appeared for the exam on May 5 from centres in Bihar were debarred. “This takes the number of total candidates debarred from the exam this year to 110,” the NTA official added.
The agency had earlier debarred 63 candidates for adopting unfair means in the exam. On Saturday, 30 additional candidates from Gujarat’s Godhra were debarred.
As many as 67 students had scored a perfect 720 in the NEET-UG exam, unprecedented in the NTA’s history, with six from a centre in Haryana’s Faridabad figuring in the list, raising suspicions about irregularities. It was alleged that grace marks contributed to 67 students sharing the top rank. Later, the Supreme Court ordered cancellation of grace marks and provided the option of retest.
Close to 24 lakh candidates sat for the NEET-UG exam, held on May 5 across 4,750 centres. Initially expected on June 14, the results were announced on June 4 due to early completion of answer sheet evaluations.