Indore (Madhya Pradesh): In a major ruling that will impact thousands of medical aspirants, Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court on Monday set aside an earlier order by single bench directing National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct a re-test for candidates who had claimed their NEET (UG) 2025 performance was severely affected by power outages during rains on the exam day, May 4.
A division bench comprising of Justice Vivek Rusia and Justice Binod Kumar Dwivedi allowed the appeals filed by the NTA and dismissed the petitions filed by candidates from Indore and Ujjain. The students had earlier succeeded in getting a re-test order from the single-judge bench on June 23, which is now overturned.
The candidates had approached the HC claiming that their exam was conducted under suboptimal conditions due to severe weather, including heavy rains and thunderstorms that led to power outages at several NEET centres in Indore and Ujjain.
They alleged poor visibility, lack of backup lighting and heightened stress levels affected their ability to complete the exam. The single-judge bench had ruled in their favour for those who filed petitions before the release of the provisional answer key on June 3, while denying re-test relief to those who approached the court later.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the NTA, argued that while temporary outages occurred, there was no systemic failure. He submitted expert committee findings showing no statistically significant adverse impact on performance at the allegedly affected centres. The NTA maintained that over 22.76 lakh students took the exam and only 0.28% of examinees from Indore-Ujjain raised grievances.
The court accepted the NTA’s position, noting that even candidates from affected centres, including one who ranked AIR 2, performed excellently. It concluded that temporary disruption due to unforeseen natural causes did not warrant a re-test, particularly when no large-scale impact or systemic failure was evident.
The HC’s reasoning
In its detailed order, the division bench emphasised:
Lack of systemic failure: The disruption was local and temporary, not widespread or severe enough to undermine the exam’s integrity.
No violation of fairness: With proper lighting arrangements in most centres and strong average performance, there was no demonstrable disadvantage.
No discrimination: The bench also held that students who approached the court after June 3 couldn’t be differentiated solely on timing, but since the re-test itself wasn’t warranted, their appeals too were dismissed.
Precedents distinguished: The court clarified that recent Supreme Court judgements allowing re-tests (such as in Vanshika Yadav) involved extraordinary systemic failures or paper leaks, not localised weather-related issues.
HC asks NTA to ensure proper arrangements in future
Before closing, the bench issued advisories to the NTA and local administrations to ensure that future high-stakes exams are backed by full infrastructure readiness, especially with respect to uninterrupted power supply and proper lighting arrangements.
‘In order to avoid such a situation in future, NTA as well as the local administration of each district are directed to ensure that all the measures {are taken], especially the continuity of power supply by way of regular supply or by way of alternate mode of supply, proper sitting arrangement, availability of air and cooling etc.
It is the responsibility of the local administration to prepare the list of centres which can be used for these types of important examinations by any of the agencies’, the bench stated.
