Delhi High Court directs NTA to form a grievance panel for NEET candidates who lose time due to technical glitches. Court says candidates must not suffer for no fault of theirs.
New Delhi: On July 29, the Delhi High Court has issued a significant direction to the National Testing Agency (NTA), asking it to form a permanent grievance redressal committee. This committee will be responsible for handling complaints of NEET-UG candidates who lose exam time due to technical problems, even though it is not their fault.
Justice Vikas Mahajan, while hearing a case related to the NEET-UG 2025 examination, stressed the need for a more structured and fair way to resolve such issues.
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The court pointed out that constitutional courts like the High Court cannot be expected to examine CCTV footage for every student who claims they lost time during the exam.
Instead, such cases must be reviewed by a panel of experts who can judge the matter fairly and transparently.
“It may be observed that this court has come across a few individual cases where the candidates suffered loss of exam time for the reasons not attributable to them…”,
said Justice Mahajan in the order dated July 28.
The court further added,
“Accordingly, the respondent no.1/NTA is directed to constitute a standing Grievance Redressal Committee for the said purpose, if not already in place, where aggrieved candidates may approach for redressal of their grievances.”
The direction was issued while hearing a petition filed by a NEET-UG 2025 candidate who faced technical issues at his exam centre. He had appeared for the exam on May 4 at Trishla Devi Kanohar Lal Balika Inter College in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.
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The candidate approached the High Court, seeking grace marks and other reliefs because he faced delays and mental stress due to problems in the biometric verification process.
According to the petitioner, the biometric verification system at the centre did not work properly. As a result, he had to file an application requesting permission to enter the exam hall.
He was allowed to enter only five minutes before the test started. Later, during the exam, he was again asked to step out for verification and was made to write another application in both English and Hindi, which caused him mental disturbance.
The court was informed that despite all this, the student still managed to score an impressive 98.86 percentile.
While responding to the petition, the authorities admitted that the biometric process had failed even after three attempts due to technical issues.
The court acknowledged this and observed that the student had lost around three minutes and 32 seconds of exam time due to no mistake of his own.
Recognising the unfairness of this situation, the High Court directed the NTA to award grace marks to the petitioner.
These marks must be calculated using the normalisation formula earlier laid down by the Supreme Court in a similar case. The updated result should be given to the student and uploaded on the official website within five days.
The court also clarified,
“It is made clear that on the basis of 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 judgment also made an important observation about fairness in exams.
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It said,
“All candidates stand on an equitable pedestal when they have been given the same amount of time for an exam. The candidate may utilise the said time as per his discretion in whatever manner he pleases.”
Further, the court added,
“However, having taken away a portion of the time allotted to him and rationalising the said act by alleging non-utilisation of the same by the student would not be justified.”
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