Delhi High Court Rejects Plea Alleging Discrepancies In 2025 JEE (Main) Exam, Says NTA's Claim Prevails When No Technical Error
The Delhi High Court has rejected a plea filed by a candidate alleging discrepancies in the conduct of Joint Entrance Examination (Main) Exam 2025, observing that the claim of National Testing Agency (NTA) must take precedence over his case where there is no manifest technical error.
Justice Vikas Mahajan rejected the plea filed by one Shashank Shekhar Pandey, holding that "no prima facie case" was made out in his favour.
Pandey sought a direction for review and rectification of the alleged errors in the final Answer Key and to extend the deadline for registration to JEE (Advanced), 2025.
The plea also sought that l an effective and transparent grievance redressal mechanism be put in place for addressing discrepancies in Recorded Response Sheets and related grievances of candidates, in a time-bound manner.
It further sought constitution of an independent committee comprising senior officials, academicians, and technical experts to enquire into the alleged discrepancies and systemic lapses in the conduct of the JEE (Main) 2025.
It was his case that when he submitted his answer sheet, a pop-up message was shown depicting the attempted questions as 46 and unattempted questions as 29.
On the other hand, the NTA refuted his claim stating that the official records maintained by them demonstrated that he had attempted only 29 questions, whereas 46 questions remained un-attempted.
The case was referred for forensic analysis to obtain opinion of technical experts.
Dismissing Pandey's plea, the Court noted that technical experts have had a finding that the candidate in question had attempted only 29 questions and not 46 as claimed by him.
It found merit in the contention of NTA's counsel that absence of audit logs with regard to the alleged 'pop-up' summary page after conclusion of the candidate's examination, cannot be assumed as a system anomaly.
The Court said that there was every possibility that the exam was submitted automatically, adding that the explanation offered by NTA was cogent and consistent with the instructions contained in the Information Bulletin for JEE (Main), 2025.
“Having regard to the above discussion, it seems that petitioner's entire case is predicated on his personal recollection of a transient 'pop-up' message appearing after submission of his exam. On the other hand, NTA's stand is that in view of the auto submit that occurred for the petitioner, no summary 'pop-up' message would have been shown and the petitioner would have directly been taken to the feedback page. The assertion of petitioner being in dispute, and nothing having been brought on record to substantiate his claim, no prima facie case can be said to have been made out in petitioner's favour,” the Court said.
“Thus, in the absence of any manifest technical error, which has been ruled out as above, the official record maintained and secured by the NTA, must take precedence over the petitioner's claim,” it added.
Title: SHASHANK SHEKHAR PANDEY v. UNION OF INDIA & ANR