JEE (Main) 2025: Delhi High Court Imposes ₹60K Cost On Candidates Alleging Irregularities In Exam For Failing To Establish Bona Fides

The Delhi High Court imposed Rs. 30,000 costs each on two candidates alleging irregularities in the conduct of JEE (Main), 2025, observing that they failed to successfully establish their bona fides to prove their case.

Having regard to the 'abundant efforts' dispensed by several government agencies to scrutinize allegations of the candidates and authenticity of their claims, Justice Vikas Mahajan ordered:

“Considering the report of technical experts, this Court is of the view that petitioners have failed to establish their bona fides, and thus, no exception can be carved out at their behest…this Court is inclined to impose a cost of Rs.30,000/- each upon petitioner nos.1 & 2. The imposition of such cost will be deterrent for unscrupulous litigants from approaching Courts with unclean hands.”

“Therefore, petitioner nos.1 and 2 are directed to deposit costs of Rs.30,000/- each towards the “Chief Justice Disaster Relief Fund 2025” established by Hon'ble the Chief Justice, High Court of Himachal Pradesh, within a period of two weeks,” the Court said.

The candidates sought permission to participate in JEE(Advanced), 2025. A direction was also sought that their actual results be released for both the Sessions based on their correct and original response sheet.

A direction was also sought on NTA to establish and use a robust system to track digital footprints including but not limited to digital watermarking and tracking technology to identify potential breaches regarding the conduct of the exam.

The candidates had alleged manipulation and tampering in the official records maintained by the authorities. It was stated that the scores for Session I published NTA qua them had subsequently been changed after release of the final scorecard post-Session II.

One of the candidates also alleged irregularities with regard to his attempt in Session II.

Rejecting their plea, the Court noted that the report given by the NCFL experts concluded that although, files containing the scorecards of the two candidates could be located on their laptops, however, the browsing history for the relevant time could not be found.

It added that no convincing justification was put forth by the candidates in question to explain as to how there existed no browsing history for the relevant time period.

“The browsing history for the specific time period which would have clarified the entire factual position is conspicuously missing. Such absence of the specific logs cannot be assumed to be a random occurrence. Considering that petitioners have failed to either preserve the relevant records or explain the absence of the aforesaid crucial logs, this Court is inclined to draw adverse inference against them,” the Court said.

Furthermore, Justice Mahajan added that the Court was not persuaded to believe the version of petitioner candidates that their scorecards were downloaded from the official website of the record produced by the NTA.

On the other hand, NTA has been able to show that as per the official records, petitioners have obtained the respective percentiles as recorded in the final composite scorecards, it added.

The Court concluded that the exercise of involving experts was undertaken on the joint request of parties and the scope of enquiry was limited to the data in the respective devices of the candidates, particularly in light of the confidence exhibited by them as to the genuineness of the documents relied upon by them.

It noted that the report of the expert body had findings which did not support the petitioners' case and that they cannot be allowed to question the reliability of the expert report on grounds of flawed technical reasoning and the findings being premised on incomplete data.

“The contentions of the petitioners in that behalf do not convince this Court. The official records maintained by NTA cannot be doubted without credible or convincing evidence. There is a presumption in favour of such official records under Section 1141 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872,” the Court said.

Title: ANUSHA GUPTA & ORS v. NATIONAL TESTING AGENCY (THROUGH THE DIRECTOR) & ORS

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1176

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