'Do you realise the harm?' SC pulls up petitioner, advocate over NEET PG 2026 re-exam plea, imposes Rs 25k cost
New Delhi: The Supreme Court recently pulled up a petitioner and their advocate seeking a nationwide re-conduct of the NEET PG 2026 examination while dismissing the plea and imposing a Rs 25,000 penalty.
"You are a full-time PIL litigant?" the Supreme Court said to the advocate on Thursday, while making strong critical remarks against the petitioner for filing a plea seeking re-conduct of the NEET-PG 2026 examination for all students.
A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe said it would ask the Bar Council of India to take action against the lawyer over the alleged misuse of the process of law, which the court said could cause serious harm to students and the examination process.
The court's remarks came after National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS)'s counsel pointed out that the petitioners were not among the candidates affected by the power disruption at the Jaipur centres during the examination. It also took exception to the advocate seeking complaints from students through social media and then approaching the court with their grievances.
For this, the bench ultimately dismissed the petition and imposed a cost of Rs 25,000.
Live Law reported that the petitioner sought re-examination for all students, alleging there was a violation of a May 2025 order wherein the court mandated that the NEET-PG be conducted in a single shift. Along with this, the plea also referred to the disruption faced by candidates at the iON Digital Zone examination centres in Sitapura, Jaipur, where an internal power outage affected around 2,445 candidates.
Medical Dialogues recently reported that a plea was filed in this regard before the Supreme Court on Wednesday before the bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana. However, the bench directed the lawyer to approach the designated bench. "All NEET matters are before the designated bench led by Justice Narasimha. Go and mention it before that bench. Several developments take place in these matters," said the bench.
The NEET PG 2026 examination was conducted for 2,73,096 registered candidates on 30.08.2026, in which 2,65,980 candidates appeared at 1111 centres across the country. The examination was completed for around 2,63,535 candidates.
However, at iON Digital Zone iDZ Sitapura centres (TC no. 41682 & 41683), Jaipur, Rajasthan, the examination could not be completed due to internal power failure issues at the centre, attributed to M/s TCS Ltd., the exam conducting agency.
NBEMS is set to conduct the NEET PG 2026 re-exam for 2,445 candidates affected by technical disruption. Announcing its decision to conduct a re-exam for the affected candidates, NBE on Tuesday announced that the re-exam shall be conducted on 05 September 2026 (Saturday) at Jaipur from 03:00 PM to 06:30 PM.
The counsel, appearing for NBEMS, told the court that the petitioners are from Noida and Punjab and were not affected at all by the disruption.
However, the petitioner's counsel stated that the internal disruption wasn't restricted to Jaipur centres only but has happened in 34 centres, including Noida.
On this, the NBEMS counsel said that with 1,111 examination centres located across India, the disruption was limited to just two centres in Jaipur due to the power failure.
After taking note of the arguments, Justice Aradhe inquired whether the petitioners filing the current PIL intended to take the exam, to which the counsel said no.
Hearing this, Justice Narasimha said: "You are a full-time PIL litigant? It appears this person has become a full-time PIL litigant. Wherever exams are conducted, you go on to file petitions. Why did you file a petition earlier to stay? Is it at your instance or the petitioner really interested in filing it? We will ask the Bar Council of India to take serious action against you."
Justice Narasimha then asked the petitioner's counsel where he was getting the information that students in 34 centres were affected. The petitioner replied that the concerned students had approached him.
However, NBEMS's counsel told the court that the advocate had also sought responses from students through social media.
Referring to the advocate's social media posts, the NBEMS counsel, "May I say something I would not have liked to say. His social media posts are with us where he is asking the students. There are videos, his whole social media where he has said if you[students] have any problem, I am mentioning a matter on behalf of Aditi. If you want to participate, please tell...Such an havoc has been created, we are getting representation all over the country."
The information drew further objection from Justice Narasimha, who said the court would consider asking the Bar Council to take action for misuse of writ jurisdiction
Justice Narasimha orally remarked, "We will ask the Bar Council to take action. Just because of getting two more extra briefs, how are you concerned about so many students calling you and informing you? Do you realise the kind of harm you are causing this country? Look at the way this country is so accessible. See you have the freedom and liberty of just walking into the Chief Justice's Court and then saying that there is an urgent matter. Courts and judges bent backwards. Chief Justice on your statement, without realising that you are working on social media, he assigned the case to us. We are sitting at 4'o clock even before a matter is actually taken up for hearing and then you end up just making a statement that people are complaining and then you go on social media."
While dismissing the present plea on Thursday, the bench said, "The writ petition was taken up on board. Heard...We dismiss this with cost of Rs.25,000."
