A writ petition has been filed before the Supreme Court challenging the manner in which the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) has disclosed the answer key and candidate responses for NEET-PG 2026, seeking disclosure of the actual questions and options presented to each candidate to enable independent verification of their scores.

The petition, filed by the Democratic Medical Association, challenges the NBEMS notice dated October 1, 2026, which provides candidates access to their question-wise evaluation through their individual applicant logins.

The petitioner contends that although the notice provides Question IDs, numerical IDs of correct answers, candidates' recorded responses, and marks awarded for each question, it does not disclose the actual questions or the text of the options in the sequence in which they were presented during the examination.

According to the petition, the disclosure mechanism does not allow candidates to independently verify whether the correct answer key has been applied to the questions they attempted or whether their responses have been accurately mapped to the corresponding questions and options.

NEET-PG 2026 was conducted on August 30, 2026, and the results were declared on September 24.

The petition states that candidates had specifically requested disclosure of the actual question paper, the official answer key and their recorded responses, rather than numerical identifiers. However, NBEMS responded to several such grievances through standardised communications stating that the declared results were "factual and correct", while referring candidates to Point No. 9 of its public notice dated September 24, the plea states.

The petition contends that the disclosure is insufficient because NBEMS follows a candidate-specific shuffling mechanism for both the sequence of questions and the order of options.

Consequently, the petition argues that merely disclosing that a particular numerical option was marked as correct and another was selected by the candidate does not enable them to ascertain the actual content of those options or verify whether the correct question and option sequence have been mapped to their examination records.

The petition states that the existing mechanism permits, at best, an arithmetical reconciliation of the marks awarded without enabling independent verification of the substantive answer key or the candidate-specific question-and-option mapping.

It further contends that without access to the actual questions and options, candidates cannot meaningfully identify ambiguous questions, questions with multiple correct answers, errors in the official answer key or discrepancies in the mapping of questions, options and recorded responses.

The petition seeks directions to NBEMS to provide every candidate with a question paper and response sheet mapped to their individual examination, reflecting the actual questions in the sequence presented, the complete options in the candidate-specific sequence, the responses recorded, the corresponding correct answers under the final official answer key and the marks awarded for each question.

It also seeks a downloadable and permanent electronic copy of these records in PDF, CSV or another suitable format, along with a reasonable and time-bound mechanism for candidates to raise objections to specific questions after examining the actual questions and options.

The petitioner has further sought the constitution of a subject-expert committee to consider such objections, with candidates being permitted to submit supporting authoritative medical material wherever applicable. They have also sought consequential corrections to scores and ranks wherever errors are established.

The petition also seeks appropriate guidelines or standard operating procedures to institutionalise a transparent post-examination disclosure mechanism for future postgraduate medical entrance examinations.

The petition cites Upendra Yadav v. National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences, in which the manner of disclosure of Question IDs, answer keys and candidate responses by reference to the Master Set of NEET-PG 2025 was challenged.

The petition states that concerns over an intelligible and verifiable post-examination disclosure mechanism have arisen across successive examination cycles.

The plea also highlights the urgency of the matter, stating that the scores and ranks declared for NEET-PG 2026 will form the basis of the counselling and admission process. It contends that any delay in providing candidates with an effective opportunity to verify their scores and seek correction of identifiable errors could result in the counselling process progressing before such errors can be remedied.

The petition seeks quashing of the October 1 notice to the extent that it restricts disclosure to Question IDs, numerical correct-answer IDs, numerical candidate responses and question-wise marks without providing the corresponding actual questions and candidate-specific option text.

It also seeks a direction to NBEMS to make the complete candidate-wise examination record available through individual applicant logins.

Advocate Satyam Singh Rajpoot and Advocate-on-Record Neema represent the petitioner.