The Bombay High Court on Thursday (July 23) issued notices to the Central Government and the National Testing Agency (NTA) in petitions filed by three NEET-UG aspirants, who have pointed out discrepancy in the results declared on July 16, wherein they were given lesser marks from what they had calculated from their OMR sheets and official answer keys.

Sitting at the Aurangabad seat, a division bench of Justice Nitin Suryawanshi and Justice Abasaheb Shinde issued notices on the petitions filed by Hricha Deshpande, Soham Gavate and Atharva Jagtap and has ordered the NTA to produce their original answer keys on July 30.

"Issue notice to the respondents, returnable on July 7, 2026. Respondents are directed to produce the petitioners' answer sheets on the next date. List the matters in urgent category," the judges ordered.

According to Deshpande, who has moved through advocate Amit Yadkikar, she appeared in the re-NEET(UG) exams held on June 21. She was given access to the OMR sheets on July 15, wherein she calculated that she would be getting at least 619 marks but on the very evening, she received another OMR sheet through NTA's email, stating that this was her actual OMR sheet, which reflected she would be getting 280 marks, which is way below the expected score that she calculated after getting access to the OMR sheets.

"The Petitioner bears a clean record and has been a bonafide aspirant throughout the process beginning from the preparatory stage till date. Despite suffering the setback and tremendous mental, psychological and physical stress of the entire examination process coming under the scanner of investigation and criminal misdeeds, the Petitioner has remained steadfast in her bonafide aspiration of serving the medical field. The Petitioner has a strong prima facie case based on contemporaneous grievance, documentary inconsistency, and detailed comparative analysis. The balance of convenience is in her favour because the Respondents lose nothing by producing the original OMR and preserving records, whereas the Petitioner will suffer irreversible educational prejudice fi counselling proceeds solely on the basis of the disputed result. This directly affects the Petitioner's educational future and professional prospects. Fairness, transparency and due process in the recording and evaluation of responses are thus integral to Article 21," Deshpande stated in her plea.

According to Deshpande, at the time of appearing for the examination, she had made corresponding entries in the question booklet which she was permitted to retain. The NTA had displayed scanned images of OMR answer sheets and machine recorded responses on its website and she accessed her OMR on the NTA's official portal and during the said viewing period, the displayed OMR correctly reflected her marked responses.

"Since no discrepancies were found during this online viewing of the OMR, the Petitioner being convinced that the OMR flashed bore her accurate details and responses tendered by her, she approved the OMR. Subsequently, on July 15, at 5:44 PM, she received an email from NTA enclosing an OMR sheet corresponding to her application and roll number, but the attached OMR was materially different, incomplete, and reflected a drastically lower number of attempted responses in Physics and Chemistry than the OMR earlier viewed on the portal. This discrepancy experienced by the Petitioner was immediately pointed out by email to NTA on by 11:34 PM. Despite this prompt grievance before declaration of result, the Respondents proceeded to publish the final answer key and result on July 16," the plea reads.

The plea alleges that the NTA finalised Deshpande's result without any disclosed response to her OMR discrepancy grievance, despite the fact that her grievance had already specifically alleged that the emailed OMR was different from the earlier portal OMR and did not match the responses actually marked by her.

Similar is the case of the other two petitioners, wherein the two students have alleged similar discrepancies.

The matter will be next heard on July 30.

Appearance:

Advocate Amit Yadkikar appeared for Hricha.

Advocate J Salunke Sudarshan appeared for Soham.

Advocate Rohit Sarvadnya represented the NTA.

Case Title: Hricha Prafull Deshpande vs Union of India (Writ Petition 8384 of 2026)

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