The Supreme Court today, July 25, dismissed a plea by the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test - Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2025 candidates seeking relief over a power outage during the exam at several centres in Madhya Pradesh, saying the high court’s findings were not wrong and cautioning against raising false expectations.
A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and AS Chandurkar heard the petition challenging a Madhya Pradesh High Court order that had refused to allow a re-test for students affected by a power failure that lasted over an hour at some centres.
“We cannot pass an order in an individual’s case. The High Court has examined it thoroughly. Its findings were not wrong at all,” the bench said while disposing of the Special Leave Petition (SLP).
The court also said, “Don’t give unnecessary hopes to the students,” as the petitioners' counsel stressed that for many, this was their final chance to crack the highly competitive exam.
Students had submitted that the National Testing Agency's (NTA) expert committee report acknowledged the outage but failed to provide exact timings or details of the impact.
“There were 180 questions for 180 minutes. We lost more than one hour,” the counsel argued, adding that students were still being denied access to the counselling.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the NTA, opposed any relief, stating that a re-exam could not be permitted.
“The level of difficulty varies from paper to paper. We cannot have the exam again,” he said.
The court clarified that eligible students would be allowed to register for counselling.
