Supreme Court refuses plea to reconsider NEET-UG results, says lives and careers of students at stake

The Supreme Court on Friday (July 4, 2025) refused a plea 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 dismissed the plea made by Shivam Gandhi Raina, represented by senior advocate R. Balasubramanium and advocate Sriram Parakkat, for an interim stay on the commencement or continuation of the counselling process.

Noting 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 an national exam, putting the lives and careers of thousands of students at risk”.

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

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

The petition alleged the violation of Articles 14 and 21A due to errors in the answer key.

It said both the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) had failed to “rectify demonstrably incorrect answers in the provisional as well as the final answer key, despite the submission of well-founded objections supported by authoritative academic material, thereby resulting in a gross miscarriage of justice and an unconstitutional deprivation of marks that critically impact merit and career prospects of the petitioner”.

The petition referred to how the provisional answer key had three errors, specifically in questions 52, 136 (Code 47), and 140 (Code 45).

“Without delay on June 4, the petitioner submitted detailed objections with supporting evidence, including NCERT Biology, conclusively establishing that the correct answers had been erroneously marked by the NTA and MCC. 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.