The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition that challenged the validity of two questions in this year’s National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Undergraduates (NEET-UG), upholding a prior decision by the Delhi High Court. The court refused to award bonus marks for the contested questions, citing the disruption it would cause to the already concluded admissions process.
The Special Leave Petition was aimed against the Delhi High Court’s judgment dated August 1, 2024, which had declined to intervene in the results announced by the National Testing Agency (NTA). The High Court had noted that subject experts had reviewed the disputed questions and that altering the results post-announcement would compromise the counseling and admission schedule.
Chief Justice of India Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud, along with Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, stated during the hearing, “We cannot unseat the whole process.” The CJI further elaborated on the complexities involved in re-evaluating the entire examination, pointing out the potential injustice to students who have already secured their admissions based on the existing results.
The petitioner had argued that the NTA’s refusal to deem questions 104 and 149 from the R4 test booklet as incorrect and to award bonus marks was arbitrary and discriminatory. However, the Court emphasized that it could not override the expert assessments on the accuracy of NEET-UG answers and maintained that the judiciary should not act as an appellate body over academic expert decisions.
Previously, on July 23, 2024, the Supreme Court had already declined to annul the NEET-UG 2024 examination, citing insufficient evidence to suggest a compromise in the integrity of the examination or results.
