The Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed a plea by a group of NEET aspirants seeking a re-examination due to alleged power outages at four Chennai centres, holding that such a move would unjustifiably disrupt the examination process and affect over two million candidates.
A division bench comprising Justice J. Nisha Banu and Justice M. Jothiraman dismissed the appeal filed by S. Sai Priya and 11 others against a June 6 single-judge order that had refused to stay the declaration of NEET results or order a re-test. The students had approached the court claiming power disruptions during the May 5 NEET (UG) 2025 exam, demanding a re-examination for candidates from the affected centres.
Rejecting the plea, the bench noted that the National Testing Agency (NTA) had conducted a thorough field verification and statistical analysis. Officials including the Centre Superintendent, Invigilators, NTA Observers, and City Coordinator had all confirmed that the exam was conducted smoothly. Moreover, an independent expert committee had compared anonymised data from the alleged centres to others in the district and found no statistically significant difference in candidate performance.
The court said that the data showed no material impact due to the alleged outage, and held that the decision of the NTA was neither arbitrary nor illegal. It also stressed the logistical and academic implications of ordering a re-test at this stage.
“If any re-examination is permitted, the same would severely affect more than two million candidates,” the bench observed, adding that judicial review cannot substitute the technical findings of independent experts unless mala fides or manifest illegality are shown.
Finding no merit in the appeal, the court ruled that the integrity of the NEET examination process had been maintained and upheld the earlier decision, thereby dismissing the writ appeal.
