NEET-PG aspirants have moved the Supreme Court challenging NBEMS’ new “Question ID-only” answer key system, calling it “opaque, unintelligible and incapable of meaningful verification.” They seek candidate-wise disclosure for transparency and fairness.
New Delhi: On August 28, a group of NEET-PG 2025 aspirants approached the Supreme Court of India, challenging a recent “corrective notice” issued by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) on August 21.
The writ petition has been filed by doctors who had appeared for the NEET-PG exam. They argued that the new system introduced for publishing answer keys is unfair and not transparent. According to them, the mechanism is “opaque, unintelligible and incapable of meaningful verification.”
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The corrective notice changed an earlier NBEMS circular and directed that candidate responses and answer keys would only be shown with reference to ‘Question ID Numbers’ from a master set of the question paper.
The petitioners said this system is problematic because the NEET-PG exam was conducted with shuffled sequencing of questions and answer options. They claimed that this format prevents them from seeing a “clear and candidate-wise mapped view of the questions actually attempted by them”.
The plea further said,
“It frustrates the very object of publishing answer keys and responses, which is to enable candidates to cross-check their answers, raise objections against discrepancies, and ensure transparency in evaluation of a high-stakes national examination.”
The doctors told the court that under this Question ID-only method, the disclosure of answers becomes meaningless. They argued that it is “illusory and non-verifiable” and that it violates their rights under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution because it denies them a fair and transparent admission process.
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Advocate Satyam Singh, who filed the petition, clarified that the students are not asking for re-evaluation of their answer sheets. Instead, their concern is only with the way NBEMS has chosen to show the answer keys and responses.
The petition has requested that the disclosure must properly include four things:
“(i) The questions in the order actually attempted, (ii) the candidate’s responses, (iii) the official correct answers, and (iv) the marks awarded.”
The plea also referred to earlier Supreme Court directions on NEET-PG transparency, pointing out that the court had earlier asked NBEMS to publish raw scores, answer keys, and the normalisation formula for candidates.
To strengthen their case, the petitioners highlighted that other important competitive exams like IIT-JEE, CLAT, and AIIMS INI-CET already follow the practice of giving candidates their actual responses along with answer keys.
The petitioners emphasised that lakhs of medical graduates appear for NEET-PG every year for a very limited number of postgraduate seats. They warned that unless the apex court intervenes and gives corrective directions, the “sanctity of NEET-PG will remain compromised.”
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Finally, the plea has sought a declaration that the NBEMS corrective notice is unconstitutional in so far as it mandates disclosure only through Question IDs and not in the sequence actually attempted by candidates.
It has also requested the Supreme Court to order NBEMS to publish the exact questions seen by each candidate, the correct answers, the responses marked by the candidate, and a fair system to raise objections.
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