Madras High Court rejects NEET re-exam plea over Chennai power outage

A group of NEET UG aspirants from Chennai seeking a retest due to alleged power failures at their exam centers faced a legal setback on July 3, as the Madras High Court dismissed their appeal, saying that rescheduling the exam would disrupt the academic future of over two million students.

The appeal was filed by S Sai Priya and 11 others, challenging the High Court’s earlier order on June 6 that refused to halt the NEET UG 2025 results or mandate a re-exam.

The students claimed they were affected by power outages at four test centers in Chennai during the exam conducted on May 4.

A division bench of Justice J Nisha Banu and Justice M Jothiraman heard the case and ruled against the petitioners, citing the findings of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and supporting evidence from exam officials.

“It is to be noted that the integrity of the exam is particularly ensured through human supervision, including the presence of the Centre Superintendent, Invigilators, NTA-appointed Observers, and the City Coordinator,” the bench said.

The judges emphasized that the NTA had conducted a detailed review, including on-ground verification and a statistical assessment of candidate performance.

“All these officials have examined and confirmed that the examination was conducted smoothly. A factual inquiry was undertaken by the NTA, and the inquiry was conducted with regard to the field verification through the reports of the examination functionaries and an independent statistical analysis of candidate performance data,” the court noted.

The statistical review compared the number of questions attempted by students at the affected centers with other centers in the Thiruvallur district and found no major discrepancies.

“This analysis found no statistically significant difference in the number of questions attempted, confirming that the alleged power outage did not materially impact candidate performance. Furthermore, NEET (UG) 2025 is a time-sensitive and large-scale national examination,” the court added.

Highlighting the need to maintain the credibility of the testing system, the judges said they could not override a detailed decision made by the NTA and an independent expert committee unless it was proven to be arbitrary, biased, or unlawful.

“It was crucial to uphold the integrity of the educational assessments in conducting examinations, and this Court cannot sit in an appellate jurisdiction against the considered decision of the speaking order passed by the NTA, after field verification of the examination center and statistical analysis by an independent expert committee with no affiliation to the NTA, unless such decision is demonstrated to be manifestly arbitrary, mala fide, or illegal,” the court said.

The judges concluded that re-examining a small group of students could delay results and harm the interests of the broader applicant pool.

“In such circumstances, if any re-examination is permitted, the same would severely affect more than two million candidates. Therefore, we do not find any reason to interfere with the order impugned, and the writ appeal lacks merit, and the same is liable to be dismissed. As a result, this writ appeal stands dismissed,” they ruled.

In a related development, the Madhya Pradesh High Court on July 2 stayed the re-test for students who had faced similar power cuts in Indore and Ujjain during the same exam session, adding another layer of legal complexity to the issue.