Justice Vikas Mahajan, Delhi High Court
Constitutional Courts Not Expected To View CCTV Footage: Delhi High Court Asks NTA To Constitute Redressal Committee For Candidates Prejudiced Due To Loss Of Exam Time
|The petitioner, before the Delhi High Court, was subjected to interruptions mid-examination for the reverification of his identity credentials, leading to loss of crucial exam time.
While granting relief to a NEET candidate who suffered the loss of over 3 minutes of examination time, the Delhi High Court has directed the National Testing Agency to constitute a Standing Grievance Redressal Committee where aggrieved candidates may approach for redressal. The High Court also made it clear that Constitutional Courts cannot be expected to view CCTV footages.
The petitioner was subjected to interruptions and harassment mid-examination for reverification of his identity credentials with respect to his Aadhaar, thereby leading to loss of crucial exam time while he was taking his National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate)–2025 Examination (NEET (UG) 2025). The said exam was conducted by the respondent/NTA on May 4, 2025 at the Examination Centre located in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.
The Single Bench of Justice Vikas Mahajan observed, “As a parting note, it may be observed that this Court has come across few individual cases where the candidates suffered loss of exam time for the reason not attributable to them. Constitutional Courts cannot be expected to view CCTV footages, like in the present case, for each such candidate who has been prejudiced on account of loss of exam time for no fault of his. Such cases ought to be examined by a body of experts in a transparent and fair manner which would carry out the exercise undertaken by this Court in the present case.”
It ordered, “Accordingly, the respondent no.1/NTA is directed to constitute a standing Grievance Redressal Committee for the said purpose, if not already in place, where aggrieved candidates may approach for redressal of their grievances. The Standing Committee shall also be at liberty to devise a formula more suitable/appropriate for the examination in question.”
Senior Advocate Gautam Narayan represented the Petitioner while SC Sanjay Khanna represented the Respondent.
Factual Background
The petitioner had registered himself for appearing in NEET (UG) 2025, scheduled to be conducted May 4, 2025. It was the petitioner’s case that the biometric verification was getting delayed due to some alleged technical snag at the examination centre. While the petitioner was writing his exam, he was asked by the Officials to undergo Aadhaar verification once again and resubmit the application in the prescribed format. Despite the loss of precious exam time in the said process, no compensatory time beyond 5:00 PM was allowed.
Subsequently, the petitioner addressed a detailed representation to the respondent through email, wherein he narrated the sequence of events that transpired at the Examination Centre and prayed for grace marks to compensate for the time lost. The petitioner thus approached the High Court seeking directions to the respondent to consider detailed representations of the petitioner and award compensatory marks as per the normalization formula as laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Disha Panchal v. Union of India & Ors. (2018).
Reasoning
The Bench found that it was clear from the CCTV footage that the petitioner was interrupted twice during the examination. This interruption lasted for 2 minutes and 20 seconds, and in total, the petitioner lost 3 minutes and 32 seconds. This duration, according to the Bench, was not insignificant as an average time of one minute was given for each question, creating a time-sensitive situation for the candidates where every second counts.
The Bench said, “Biometric verification could have been completed after conclusion of the examination i.e. post 05:00 PM, when the candidate was no longer engaged in attempting the paper. Such an approach would have preserved both procedural integrity and fairness, without causing prejudice to the examinee.”
Holding that the normalization formula laid down in Disha Panchal (supra) could be applied to the present case, the Bench said, “...this Court finds that the petitioner, having evidently suffered a loss of time amounting to 03 minutes and 32 seconds during the exam due to no fault of his own, deserves to be compensated for the same.”
The Bench ordered the respondent/NTA to award the petitioner with grace marks by applying the normalisation formula laid down in Disha Panchal (supra) and communicate the updated result/scorecard within 5 days. “To ensure that the revised rank of the petitioner does not upset the ranks of other candidates, the petitioner shall be assigned supernumerary rank. Illustratively, if the revised rank of the petitioner is falling between the rank 1000 and 1001, he may be assigned rank 1000A”, it further added.
Appearance:Cause Title: Satya Nishth v. National Testing Agency (NTA) & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025:DHC:6113)
Petitioner: Senior Advocate Gautam Narayan, Advocates Udayan Verma, Asmita, Disha Joshi
Respondent: SC Sanjay Khanna, Advocates Tarandeep Singh, Pragya Bhusan, Vilakshana Dayma, T. Singhdev, Anum Hussain, Abhijit Chakravarty, Sourabh Kumar, Yamini Singh