NEET UG 2025 : Supreme Court Refuses To Entertain Plea To Publish Final Answer Key Before Results Declaration

The Supreme Court today(June 13) dismissed as withdrawn a writ petition challenging the practice followed by the National Testing Agency conducting the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-2025 (Undergraduate), whereby the final answer keys of the exam are published after the final result is announced.

The petitioner challenged two questions after the provisional answer keys were published and raised objections to them; however, after an enquiry, he was informed that only after the final result is declared will the NEET publish the final answer keys. This, he says, leads to the revaluation of ranks, causing "serious consequences" and violating Article 14 of the Constitution, inasmuch as the candidates who have been wrongly ranked higher due to getting more marks for incorrect answers would gain an unfair advantage over candidates who have given correct answers.

At the outset, when Senior Advocate Huzefa Ahmadi started his submissions before a bench comprising Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Manmohan, Justice Manmohan asked why the High Court wasn't approached.

Ahmadi responded that the issue raised in the petition has "all-India ramifications". To this, Justice Mishra suggested that the petitioner can approach the concerned High Court. Justice Manmohan also stated that the Court wants to benefit from the High Court's judgment.

In a lighter vein, Justice Mishra orally remarked that NEET is only benefiting lawyers, and added: "There is news in today's newspaper, the new regime has settled in the USA, lawyers are getting benefited. 400% increase in litigation."

 Nevertheless, Ahmadi tried to justify why the Article 32 petition has been filed, and he argued: "Today, you have 22.7 lacs students in NEET, one high court taking one view and another high court taking another view, that's a huge problem. Secondly, kindly see, what is the core of the matter, you have in NEET what is called as the provisional answersheet, answersheet as a particular key. Three questions that I have pointed out are wrong, the answers are wrong. Now, that the practice they have been following...answer keys have been published and I have made objections, now the difficulty is, they must [publish the final answer keys] before the declaration of results."

Justice Manmohan responded that even after ranks are declared, there still could be a challenge to the answers, if they are wrong as alleged by the petitioner. 

Whereas, Justice Mishra said: "There will be then lakhs of cases [if final answerkeys is published before the final result is declared]...Because of this one case, there will be huge complications. This process will never come to an end."

The petitioner has been given liberty to approach the High Court.

Case Details: NAJIYA NASRE Vs UNION OF INDIA|W.P.(C) No. 578/2025

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The writ petition was filed through AOR Zulfikar Ali