NEET 2026 discrepancy: HC rejects 520 to 85 score plea after NTA produces original OMR sheet
Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court recently refused to order an investigation into a candidate's allegations of a discrepancy in her NEET 2026 re-examination result on the ground that the original records produced by the National Testing Agency (NTA) did not match the claimed documents.
Dismissing the petition filed by the 19-year-old student from Gurdaspur, who claimed that she had received two different OMR sheets and that her score had changed from 520 to 85 marks, the court examined the original records submitted by the NTA and found that the OMR sheet relied upon by the student was only a xerox copy of the original OMR sheet maintained by the examination agency.
The recent judgment was passed after the court in its previous proceedings, directed the NTA and the Union Government to produce the candidate’s original OMR sheet and both scorecards of the examination.
Background
Medical Dialogues had reported that the petition was filed by a 19-year-old NEET candidate, a resident of Gurdaspur district, through advocate Bikramjit Singh Bajwa, who appeared for NEET-UG 2026, which was initially held on May 3 and subsequently re-conducted on June 21.
According to the petition, on July 13, the petitioner downloaded her OMR sheet from the NTA website and calculated that she had scored 520 marks. However, when the NEET-UG 2026 result was declared on July 16, her score was shown as 85 marks out of 720.
On July 17, she alleged that she received another OMR sheet from the NTA carrying different marked answers, although the candidate details were the same.
After she raised a grievance, an email from the NTA dated July 19 allegedly showed her score as 520 marks out of 720. The petitioner then visited the NTA office on July 20 and submitted a written complaint.
However, on July 27, her score was again changed to 85 marks, and she was dropped from the merit list. She later alleged that another OMR sheet was shown to her at the NTA office, which supported the 85-mark result.
Challenging the alleged discrepancy in the result, the petitioner approached the court and alleged that the NTA, "illegally and arbitrarily and based on false OMR Sheet", had declared her ineligible despite the earlier result and sought directions to consider her candidature based on 520 marks and allow her to participate in counselling provisionally.
Recent hearing
On this, the NTA disputed the candidate's claim and told the court that the OMR sheet produced by her was a forged document and was not part of its official records.
"The OMR sheet produced by the student are 'forged documents'. They do not exist nor form part of the official record of the NTA. The scorecard has been changed / manipulated with 520 marks as well as the percentile," the agency informed the court.
As per the latest media report by HT, the examination agency further submitted that only one OMR sheet had been uploaded on the NTA portal on July 13 for all candidates, including the petitioner and that there has been no change in the OMR sheet since then.
After examining the original records, the High Court said it examined the original document and was satisfied that the OMR sheet produced by the student was a Xerox copy of the original OMR sheet submitted by the NTA.
"Once the original record has been produced before this court by NTA, extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 cannot be exercised merely on the basis of a xerox/downloaded copy of a document, whose contents are inconsistent with original record maintained by the examining body," the court observed while dismissing the plea.
