SC refuses interim relief to NEET-UG candidates seeking retest over power outage

The Supreme Court on July 23 declined to grant provisional permission for NEET-UG 2025 counselling to two candidates from Madhya Pradesh who cited a power outage during their exam.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar listed their pleas for further hearing on July 25.

The candidates, Navya Nayak and S Sai Priya, have challenged the July 14 order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, which refused to direct a retest for them.

During the hearing, their counsel sought interim permission to participate in counseling, citing the notification already issued.

However, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the National Testing Agency (NTA), argued that allowing a retest would set a precedent that could affect lakhs of students who took the examination without incident.

The bench decided not to pass any interim orders and postponed the matter.

On July 16, the top court had agreed to hear the petition filed by candidates who experienced a disruption due to a power failure at their exam centers.

Earlier, a single-judge bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court had directed the NTA to conduct a retest for affected candidates at select centers in Indore and Ujjain.

However, the division bench overturned that decision on the NTA’s appeal while emphasizing that such incidents should not occur again.

The court referred to an expert panel report that confirmed a power outage had occurred but stated there was sufficient natural light for candidates to continue writing the exam.