Delhi High Court: In a petition seeking directions to National Testing Agency (‘NTA’) to consider the detailed representations of the petitioner and awarding him compensatory marks for interruptions and harassment caused mid-examination for reverification of his identity credentials with respect to his Aadhaar, leading to loss of crucial exam time while he was taking his National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate)—2025 Examination (‘NEET (UG) 2025’), a single judge bench of Vikas Mahajan J.*stated that the petitioner, having evidently suffered a loss of time due to no fault of his own, deserved to be compensated for the same and directed the NTA to award grace marks to the petitioner and communicate the updated result/scorecard to him and upload the same within a period of 5 days with a supernumerary rank, to not upset the ranks of other candidates.
The Court while observing that it had come across few individual cases where candidates suffered loss of exam time for reasons not attributable to them, directed the NTA to constitute a standing Grievance Redressal Committee, if not already in place, where aggrieved candidates could approach for redressal of their grievances.
Background:
The petitioner had registered for NEET (UG) 2025 scheduled on 4-5-2025, with Aadhaar-based identity verification during the registration process. Upon reaching the centre at 1:20 PM, the petitioner faced delays due to a technical snag in the biometric verification process, without which candidates were not permitted entry. Centre officials asked affected candidates to submit written applications to the Centre Superintendent for conditional entry. The petitioner submitted his application by 1:55 PM and was allowed to take the exam. However, around 3:30 PM, he was again asked to undergo Aadhaar verification and re-submit the application, causing loss of exam time, for which no extra time was granted.
He had submitted a detailed representation to NTA on seeking grace marks for lost time which was subsequently acknowledged by the NTA. The OMR sheet was shared on 5-6-2025, and results were declared on 14-6-2025, showing that the petitioner scored 529 marks with a percentile of 98.86%. He submitted a second representation on 15-6-2025 reiterating his grievance. Hence, the present petition has been filed by the petitioner seeking inter alia directions to NTA to consider his detailed representations and awarding compensatory marks as per the normalisation formula, laid down by the Supreme Court in Disha Panchal v. Union of India, (2018) 17 SCC 278.
Analysis and Decision
The Court first examined whether there was any actual loss of time for the petitioner and, upon viewing the CCTV footage produced by NTA, found that the petitioner was interrupted twice; once for approximately 1 minute 12 seconds and again for around 2 minutes 20 seconds totalling a loss of 3 minutes 32 seconds.
Further, Court observed that considering the examination pattern mandated attempting 180 questions in 180 minutes, it gave an average time of one minute for each question creating a time sensitive situation for the candidates where every second counts. In these circumstances, loss of 3 minutes 32 seconds could not be said to be insignificant. The Court also acknowledged the submission of the petitioner that after being interrupted, the petitioner would have taken time to regain composure, although such time could not be quantified.
The Court further noted that it was the NTAs’ own case that biometric authentication could not be completed after three attempts due to technical issues, and the petitioner had already submitted an undertaking accepting responsibility for any discrepancy. Despite this, the petitioner was unnecessarily subjected to a second round of biometric verification mid-examination, which the Court found unjustified as no discrepancy was later found in the biometric credentials of the petitioner.
Further, the Court emphasised that since the NTA allowed the petitioner to sit before commencement of the exam, the argument of alleged late arrival pales into insignificance. The Court held that the concession granted earlier should have been consistently followed through to ensure a fair attempt without unnecessary interruptions. It was observed that biometric verification could have been done post-examination when the candidate was no longer engaged in attempting the paper to preserve procedural integrity and fairness without causing prejudice to the examinee.
The Court also dismissed the NTA’s argument that the petitioner was seen not attempting the exam in the last minutes, stating that the manner in which a candidate attempts his examination cannot be adjudged, either by the NTA or this Court. The strategy employed in any form of examination is the sole prerogative of the student and nothing can be deduced in that regard by scrutinizing his conduct. The Court concluded that having taken away a portion of the time allotted to him and rationalizing the said act by alleging non-utilization of the same by the student would not be justified and therefore, the prejudice caused must be remedied.
The Court concluded that the petitioner, having evidently suffered a loss of time amounting to 3 minutes and 32 seconds during the exam due to no fault of his own, deserved to be compensated for the same. Further, similar to the case in Disha Panchal, in the present case as well, relevant factors for ascertaining his deserving compensatory marks had been deduced from the CCTV footage produced. Thus, the normalisation formula laid down in Disha Panchal could be applied to the present case.
The Court, thus, directed the NTA to award grace marks to the petitioner by applying the normalisation formula laid down in Disha Panchal, and to communicate the updated result/scorecard to the petitioner and upload the same within a period of 5 days. To ensure that the petitioner’s revised rank did not upset the ranks of other candidates, court ordered that he be assigned a supernumerary rank. It was made clear that based on the revised score and rank, the petitioner shall be eligible to participate in the remaining counselling and it shall not affect the seats already allocated.
The Court also observed that it had come across few individual cases where candidates suffered loss of exam time for reasons not attributable to them and emphasized that Constitutional Courts cannot be expected to view CCTV footages for each such candidate. Such cases ought to be examined by a body of experts in a transparent and fair manner, and accordingly, the NTA was directed to constitute a standing Grievance Redressal Committee, if not already in place, where aggrieved candidates may approach for redressal of their grievances. The Standing Committee shall also be at liberty to devise a formula more suitable/appropriate for the examination in question.
[Satya Nishth v. NTA, W.P.(C) 8483 of 2025, decided on 28-7-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioners: Gautam Narayan, Sr. Adv. with Udayan Verma, Asmita and Disha Joshi, Advocates.
For the Respondent: Sanjay Khanna, SC with Tarandeep Singh, Pragya Bhusan and Vilakshana Dayma, T. Singhdev, Anum Hussain, Abhijit Chakravarty, Sourabh Kumar and Yamini Singh, Advocates.
