Supreme Court Refuses Plea To Reconsider NEET-UG Results

The Supreme Court refused a plea on Friday by a National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2025 exam candidate to “correct” the final answer key in accordance with the authoritative National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) standards and declare results afresh. 

A Bench of Justices PS Narasimha and R. Mahadevan was hearing the plea filed by candidate Shivam Gandhi Raina represented by senior advocate R. Balasubramaniam and advocate Sriram Parakkat,  alleging that there was a mistake in the answer given by the NTA to one question.

The bench dismissed the plea made by the petitioner for an interim stay on the commencement or continuation of the counselling process.

They noted that a similar petition to stay the NEET-UG answer key and results had come up and been dismissed a few days back, the apex court said it would not “interfere in a national exam, putting the lives and careers of thousands of students at risk”.

When the advocate pointed out that the apex court had intervened in previous years when answer keys were found to be wrong in multiple choice questions, the Bench stated that a committee of experts had been constituted in the aftermath of such judicial interventions to reform the question system.

Justice Narasimha clarified that the Supreme Court's interference in 2024 was due to widespread grievances regarding the discrepancies and shortcomings in the conduct of the exam.

“We cannot tackle individual grievances like this,” Justice Narasimha remarked.

The petition alleged violations of Articles 14 and 21A of the Constitution, citing errors in the NEET answer key. It contended that both the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) failed to rectify demonstrably incorrect answers in both the provisional and final answer keys, despite the submission of well-founded objections supported by authoritative academic sources. 

This, the petitioner argued, led to a grave miscarriage of justice and an unconstitutional deprivation of marks, significantly affecting the petitioner's merit ranking and future career prospects.

The petition specifically highlighted three erroneous questions - Question 52 and 136 (Code 47), and Question 140 (Code 45) in the provisional answer key. 

The petitioner submitted detailed objections without delay on June 4, providing conclusive evidence, including references from NCERT Biology, to establish that the officially marked answers were incorrect.

"However, despite these well-founded objections, the final answer key is published and the result is declared on June 14, retaining the incorrect answer for Q.136 (Code 47),” the petition pointed out.