The Delhi High Court has dismissed a challenge to the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) final answer key for NEET-UG 2026, holding that courts may review an answer key but can interfere only when an error is manifest and palpable and so evident that no reasonable body of subject experts would regard the answer as correct.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia was hearing an appeal filed by a minor NEET-UG 2026 candidate and his parent against the Single Judge’s order refusing to interfere with the examination result.
The dispute concerned Question No. 150 of the Biology section, which dealt with reabsorption in Henle’s loop. The NTA’s final answer key marked Option 3, comprising statements (a), (b) and (d) only, as correct, while the candidate had selected Option 2. The candidate had secured 695/720 marks and All India Rank 65.
The candidate argued that statement (c) that reabsorption of Na+ and water takes place in Henle’s loop was scientifically correct. Reliance was placed on NCERT material, standard medical textbooks and an opinion from Dr. Yogesh Singh, Professor of Physiology at AIIMS Rishikesh, who opined that all four statements in the question were correct.
The Court, however, noted that Dr. Singh’s opinion did not establish that Option 2 was the correct answer; rather, it suggested that all four statements were correct, thereby making every option incorrect. The Bench held that the appellants had failed to establish the correctness of statement (c) without relying on an inferential process of reasoning or rationalisation.
The Court further observed that the objection to Q150 had already been considered by a panel of subject experts constituted by the NTA. In the absence of any allegation of mala fides against the experts, courts must ordinarily defer to academic expertise and leave evaluation of academic content and marks to academicians.
Rejecting the plea for an independent expert committee, the Bench held that obtaining such an opinion is a matter of judicial discretion. Since the appellants had failed to demonstrate a manifest and palpable error and the question had already been examined by NTA’s subject experts, the circumstances did not warrant independent expert intervention.
The Bench accordingly upheld the Single Judge’s refusal to interfere with the NEET-UG 2026 result and dismissed the appeal. Pending applications were also disposed of, with no order as to costs.
