The Delhi High Court (HC) dismissed a petition by a National Eligiblity-cum-Entrance Test for Undergraduate (NEET UG 2024) admissions candidate citing 'out-of-syllabus' questions in the entrance exam, stating that it cannot dispute the wisdom of experts and substitute its own opinion in their place.
The high court stated today, Wednesday, August 7 in its judgement that judges are not subject matter experts and should only make decisions based on the law and how it applies to the facts and circumstances of each case.
According to PTI, the petitioner stated that one question in the Physics segment was based on 'radioactivity', although the 'radioactivity topic' was not included in this year's NEET UG syllabus.
The court noted that the particular question was posed to the subject experts constituted by the exam-conducting authority National Testing Agency (NTA), who stated that the syllabus includes 'composition and size of nucleus' and 'atomic masses' in Unit 18 of the chapter 'Atoms and Nuclei'.
"The subject experts have negated the challenge of the petitioner. Therefore, this court is of the opinion that it cannot substitute its own understanding for that of the experts, who are better equipped to address the complexities and nuances of the subject," Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said.
"When academic and subject experts of NTA have opined that the impugned question has been prepared from the prescribed syllabus of NEET (UG)-2024, this court cannot doubt the wisdom of the experts and substitute its opinion in place of the same," the court added.
Furthermore, the high court dismissed two separate petitions by two other applicants arguing that their responses to key questions were incorrectly recorded.
The court stated that if the error is not self-evident, it cannot comprehend, re-analyse, or re-assess the proper answers to the disputed issues.
The NTA conducted the NEET UG 2024 examination on May 5 across 4,750 centres, with around 24 lakh candidates taking it.
The results were supposed to be released on June 14, but they were announced on June 4, presumably because the correction of the answer sheets was completed early.
On July 23, the Supreme Court refused to annul the NEET-UG 2024, stating that there was no evidence on record at this time to show that a systemic leak of question papers had ruined the sanctity of the tests.
