The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Monday directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct a re-test of NEET UG 2025 for candidates who faced a power outage during the exam at centres in Indore and Ujjain.
Justice Subodh Abhyankar, while hearing multiple writ petitions from affected candidates, ruled in favour of the students. The court observed that these students were put at a disadvantage through no fault of their own, which violated Article 14 of the Constitution that guarantees the right to equality.
During the hearing, the judge dimmed the courtroom lights to simulate the exam conditions and noted the drop in visibility, even with large windows providing some natural light. The court acknowledged that such natural lighting may not have been available at the exam centres.
The High Court clarified that the re-test benefit will apply only to students who filed petitions before June 3, 2025, the day the provisional answer key was released.
Ranks to be based solely on re-test
The court said the counselling process would be subject to the outcome of the re-test. It added that petitioners’ ranks will be determined only on the basis of their re-test performance.
NEET UG 2025 was held on May 4, and results were declared on June 14. Out of the total candidates, 12,36,531 cleared the exam. Notably, over half the candidates who appeared were female, and 58% of the qualifiers, around 7.22 lakh, were also female.
Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of qualifiers at 1,70,684, followed by Maharashtra (1,25,727), Rajasthan (1,19,865), Karnataka (83,582), and Bihar (80,954).