After MP, Madras HC junks NEET 2025 re-exam plea

Chennai: After the Madhya Pradesh High Court, now a Division bench of the Madras High Court has dismissed a plea seeking re-examination of the National Eligibility-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2025.

While the petitioners claimed that their examination was disrupted due to the heavy rainfall and poor management by the exam centre, the HC bench, comprising the HC bench Division bench comprising Justices J Nisha Banu and M Jothiraman, dismissed the plea, noting that conducting a re-examination would severely affect more than two million candidates.

The Court also took note of the factual enquiry conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) and also considered the statistical analysis carried out by an independent expert committee. This analysis also confirmed that the alleged power outage did not materially affected the candidates' performance.

Accordingly, the HC bench observed,

"This Court is of the opinion that it is crucial to uphold the integrity of the educational assessments in conducting examinations and this Court cannot sit in an appellate jurisdiction against the considered decision of the speaking order passed by the NTA, after field verification of examination centre and statistical analysis by an independent expert committee with no affiliation to the NTA, unless such decision is demonstrated to be manifestly arbitrary, mala fide or illegal. In such circumstances, if any re-examination is permitted, the same would severely affect more than two million candidates. Therefore, we do not find any reason to interfere with the order impugned and the writ appeal lacks merit and the same is liable to be dismissed."

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that last month, a single bench of the Madras High Court also dismissed a plea seeking re-examination of the National Eligibility-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET) while observing that if any re-exam was permitted on trivial grounds, the same would seriously affect the level playing field of around 22 lakh candidates.

This group of students had mentioned in their plea that due to storm and heavy rainfall, there had been a power outage at PM Shri Kendriya Vidyalaya CRPF-Avadi, Chennai, which was their examination centre, from approximately 3.00 PM to 4.15 PM on the day of the exam i.e. May 4, 2025. In their affidavit submitted before the HC, these candidates had also claimed that there were no backup facilities such as generators or inverters and therefore, they had to write the exam under poor lighting conditions. Since rainwater entered the exam hall, it caused further disruption as the students were allegedly asked to move from their assigned seats. They had also claimed that the examination center did not provide any compensatory time to them.

Before the Division bench of the HC, the counsel for the appellants submitted that the grievance of the appellants was not merely the occurrence of power outage, but, a complete breakdown of exam conditions from 3.00 p.m. to 4.15 p.m. including a lack of lighting due to power failure caused due to heavy rainfall and darkened skies and gross inequality in exam conditions compared to other exam cities.

The counsel also argued that the report of the NTA was not fair, complete and conclusive, due to material and factual inaccuracies, incomplete findings and lack of contemporaneous objective evidence, particularly CCTV footage. He submitted that in spite of the power outage, the exam centre did not provide any compensatory time to the candidates and did not arrange for any power backup.

On the other hand, the Additional Solicitor General contended that even though there was a brief power outage, there was no impact upon the performance of the candidates, as the exam was conducted during the daytime. He denied that the candidates were moved from their assigned seats and claimed that the disruption was minor and it was seen from the screenshots of the CCTV footage, which he placed before the Court.

The footage showed that the exam rooms had large windows with glass panes that allowed ample ambient daylight to enter. Therefore, the ASG argued that even during the short period between power outage and generator restoration, the rooms remained sufficiently illuminated due to natural light and the candidates continued writing without interruption and therefore, the lighting conditions remained conductive to the fair conduct of the exam.

He further submitted before the Court that out of thirteen appellants, one of the appellants had attempted to attend 179 questions out of 180 questions. Similarly, five appellants attempted to answer more than 140 out of 180 questions. Therefore, he prayed to dismiss the appeal.

On 10.06.2025, the Court had directed NTA to produce the CCTV footage of the exam hall in question and in compliance with the order, NTA filed a report on 15.06.2025 along with screenshots of the CCTV footage of various classrooms at the centre dated 04.05.2025 concerning the NEET UG 2025 examination conducted at PM Shri Kendriya Vidyalaya CRPF, Avadi, Thiruvallur District.

On 16.06.2025, the Madras HC bench comprising Justice V Lakshminarayanan had granted an interim stay restraining the authorities from releasing the NEET UG 2025 results.

However, on 06.06.2025, the Single bench of the Madras HC dismissed the plea seeking a re-examination of NEET 2025. Meanwhile, based on the order dated 16.05.2025, NTA conducted a field verification of the exam centre with the Centre Superintendent, City Coordinator, NTA-appointed Observers and invigilators on duty in the exam halls and consequently, NTA issued a speaking order on 01.06.2025.

In the order, relying on the factual reports received from on-ground examination functionaries and the findings of the independent Statistical Expert Committee, NTA concluded the following:

i.The examination at exam Centre 4111103 PM Shri Kendriya Vidyalaya was conducted under adequate light conditions, and though there was a brief power outage, natural light was sufficient and examination activities continued uninterrupted. Besides there was power backup arranged by the Centre.

ii.Candidates were not asked to stop writing at any point of time, nor were they hindered in completing their paper.

iii.There was no material disruption to the examination process at the said centre. Candidates including petitioners did not report/represent any grievance during conduct of the exam or immediately thereafter to any exam functionaries at centre.

iv.The examination was conducted in a smooth and uninterrupted manner, notwithstanding the temporary power fluctuation.

v. The performance data of the petitioners and other candidates at the centre vis a vis other centres in the district indicates no adverse impact on their attempts to the questions on OMR answer sheet due to the alleged incident.

Referring to the speaking order dated 01.06.2025, the HC bench observed that as per the order, even though there was a brief power outage, natural light was sufficient and examination activities continued uninterrupted besides there was a power backup arranged by the centre.

"According to the subsequent report dated 15.06.2025 along with the screenshots of CCTV footage pertains to multiple rooms including the room where the appellants were seated and the recording begins at 2.00 p.m. and continued uninterrupted till approximately 3.09 p.m. and thereafter, due to a regional power outage attributed to localized storms, the recording ceased as the CCTV system - managed by a private vendor - was not connected to the generator (DG) supply grid. The report also states that the examination centre was equipped with a dedicated diesel generator (DG) supply, which was activated immediately after the power outage and restoration of power to all floors of the centre, particularly, lighting in examination rooms, was prioritized and completed in a few minutes," observed the HC bench.

"It is to be noted that the integrity of the exam is particularly ensured through human supervision including the presence of the Centre Superintendent, Invigilators, NTA appointed Observers and City Coordinator. All these officials have examined and confirmed that the examination was conducted smoothly. A factual enquiry was undertaken by the NTA and the enquiry was conducted with regard to the field verification through the reports of the examination functionaries and an independent statistical analysis of candidate performance data. Statistical analysis was conducted by an independent expert committee and the said committee carried out an analysis based on anonymized data relating to the average number of questions attempted by the candidates at the said centre and comparisons with other centres in Thiruvallur District are statistically comparable across the centres in the district, where the examination was conducted smoothly. This analysis found no statistically significant difference in the number of questions attempted, confirming that the alleged power outage did not materially impact candidate performance. Further more, NEET (UG) 2025 is a time sensitive and large scale national examination," it further noted.

Accordingly, the Court observed that if any re-examination was permitted, it would adversely affect more than two million candidates. With this observation, the NTA dismissed the plea.

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Also Read: No NEET 2025 re-exam: Madras HC junks plea, says 22 lakh candidates can't be affected