The Bombay High Court at Goa has rejected a petition filed by 18-year-old, a PwBD candidate, who alleged that her NEET (UG) 2025 scorecard was manipulated to lower her percentile and deny her an MBBS seat. The petitioner initially claimed a percentile of 54.74 with 326 marks, but a subsequent scorecard reflected 44.74 percentile with 126 marks below the 45th percentile cut-off for PwBD admissions.
The Division Bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Nivedita P. Mehta examined the official scorecard downloaded by the National Testing Agency (NTA) in court, which matched the lower score. The bench noted discrepancies in the petitioner’s earlier scorecard and found no credible evidence of its authenticity. The Court also reviewed the petitioner’s OMR sheet, which confirmed the lower marks, and highlighted that no challenge was raised within the stipulated time.
The Court noted that
“Petitioner has failed to raise any challenge to the marking in the OMR and a copy of the OMR sheet produced before us, purely reflect that the Petitioner has secured 126 marks as she has marked 51 answers correct and 78 answers wrong and by calculating the score by taking into consideration the negative marking, her result of the exam held on 04.05.2025 was declared and she had scored 126 marks.”
Observing that the petitioner missed the cut-off “by a brink” but finding no mala fides in the admission process, the Court dismissed the writ petition.
Appearances:
Ms Namrata Namdev, Advocate for the Petitioner.
Mr. Pravin Faldessai, Additional Government Advocate for Respondent No. 1.
Mr. D. Pangam, Advocate General with Ms. Maria Correia, Additional Government Advocate for Respondent nos. 2 and 3.
