MP High Court Orders NEET Re-Test For Affected Students Over Power Outage Row

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): In a landmark judgment, Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed National Testing Agency (NTA) to re-conduct NEET-UG 2025 exam for students, adversely affected by power outage during the entrance test on May 4.

The order, issued by Justice Subodh Abhyankar, is applicable only to those petitioners who filed writ petitions before June 3, 2025—the date on which the provisional answer key was released.

The HC’s decision comes in response to over 100 petitions, led by Laxmi Devi and others, alleging that a thunderstorm disrupted power supply across several exam centres in Indore and Ujjain. The petitioners contended they were forced to write the exam in near-dark conditions without adequate lighting or backup arrangements, severely impacting their performance.

Justice Abhyankar acknowledged that while the NTA submitted reports suggesting minimal disruption—with emergency lights, generators or adequate daylight available—the psychological impact and inconsistency in lighting conditions warranted redressal under Article 14 of the Constitution.

“The exam was only of three hours duration, in which, even for 10 minutes, if a student faces a difficulty in reading and writing due to power outage, the same has the effect of rattling one’s mental condition, and sufficient to disturb his or her composure and focus for the remaining time,” the judge observed.

The court also took note of video evidence, press reports and even a public statement by Indore Collector admitting to weather-related disruptions. Significantly, the court found that no CCTV footage was submitted by the NTA to confirm the actual conditions inside examination rooms, despite such a requirement in examination guidelines.

While the NTA argued that re-test would undermine the fairness of the national exam and cited logistical concerns, the court dismissed this, stating, “With its vast resources, NTA should be able to organise a re-test of comparable difficulty.”

Importantly, the court limited relief to only those students who had proactively filed petitions before June 3, ruling out relief for those who approached the court post-result declaration. “They seemingly took a chance and such delay defeats their claim,” the court held.

The re-test must be held “as expeditiously as possible,” the court ordered and the affected students’ ranks will be determined solely based on their performance in the re-exam. Meanwhile, the ongoing NEET counselling process will remain subject to the outcome of this re-test.