“Even Ten Minutes Of Power Outage Is Sufficient To Disturb Focus”: MP High Court Orders NEET Re-Test For Candidates Affected By Exam Disruption

A Single Bench of Justice Subodh Abhyankar observed, “…the petitioner/s has/have made out a case for interference under Article 14 as her/they, without there being any fault on their part, was/were put into a disadvantageous position due to power outage, which condition did not prevail in the other examination centre or even in the same centre where some of the students were sitting at favorable spots having sufficient natural light.”

The Court added, “It must be remembered that the exam was only of three hours duration, in which, even for ten minutes, if a student faces a difficulty in reading and writing due to power outage, the same has the effect of rattling one’s mental condition, and sufficient to disturb his or her composure and focus for the remaining time.”

Advocate Mradul Bhatnagar appeared for the Petitioners, while Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta represented the Respondents.

Brief Facts

The Petitioners were NEET UG 2025 aspirants who appeared for the exam at various centres in Indore. On the day of the examination, a thunderstorm caused a complete power outage at multiple venues, where the Petitioners were assigned. Some rooms reportedly had no electricity or backup lighting, forcing candidates to write their papers in near or complete darkness.

Despite these conditions, the Petitioners attempted the exam and later moved the Court seeking a re-test, citing violation of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. They supported their claim with media reports, social media videos, and statements by district authorities acknowledging the weather-related disruption.

The Respondents, including the NTA and Union of India, opposed the plea and relied on statistical analysis and physical audit reports to argue that the candidates’ performance was not significantly impacted. They also submitted that granting a re-test would violate the principle of equal treatment. It was further submitted by the Respondents that no CCTV footage was available to corroborate the Petitioners’ claims.

Reasoning of the Court

The Court rejected the argument that statistical reports alone could prove the fairness of the examination process, noting that purely quantitative data failed to account for the mental distress suffered by students who experienced power outages during the paper. “In the considered opinion of this court, such report which does not take into account the human emotions prevailing at that time, cannot be blindly accepted on its face value”, the Court added.

On the likely psychological impact of even brief periods of darkness during the exam, the Court stated, “It must be remembered that the exam was only of three hours duration, in which, even for ten minutes, if a student faces a difficulty in reading and writing due to power outage, the same has the effect of rattling one’s mental condition, and sufficient to disturb his or her composure and focus for the remaining time.”

The Bench also expressed concern that despite NTA guidelines mandating CCTV surveillance at all centres, no video footage was submitted from the affected venues. It observed, “This Court also finds that as per the guidelines provided to the examination centres… centres must have CCTV installed in them, and admittedly the respondents have not come out with even a single CCTV footage of the classes where exams were being conducted and there was power outage.”

To understand the level of light that candidates might have experienced, the Court symbolically turned off the lights in the courtroom during the hearing. It found that while minimal light entered through windows, it was not adequate for exam purposes. The Court noted, “At the time of hearing of this case, this Court, to ascertain as to what level of difficulty might have been faced by the students, had also switched off the lights of the courtroom, which did have an effect of dimming the light in the courtroom to a relatively low levels by way of natural light.”

In response to NTA’s objection about preparing a new paper of equal difficulty, the Court observed, “So far as the preparation of the paper of the same level of difficulty is concerned, this court believes that the respondent No.1, with its vast resources would be able to come up with a solution.”

The Court held that only those Petitioners who had approached the Court prior to June 3, 2025, i.e., before the publication of the provisional answer key, would be entitled to a re-test., “It is directed to the respondent No.1 National Testing Agency to conduct the examination as expeditiously as possible and declare the results. It is made clear that the petitioner/s rank based solely on her/their scores in the re-test shall be considered”, the Court directed.

The Bench further directed that the counselling would be subject to the final result of the petitioner in the re-test.

Accordingly, the Court allowed the writ petitions; however, it clarified that no relief would be extended to candidates who filed petitions after the release of the provisional answer key.

Cause Title: Laxmi Devi v. National Testing Agency & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025:MPHC-IND:14992)

Appearance:

Petitioners: Advocates Mradul Bhatnagar, Akash Sharma, N.S. Bhati, Nitin Vyas, Amit Raj, Rajnish Yadav, Aman Mourya, Prakhar Karpe, Chinmay Mehta, Dharmendra Thakur, Atul Bukhariya, Madhusudan Dwivedi, Sapna Patwa, Ajay Ukas, Jaswant Singh Chouhan, Rahul Yadav, Deesha Goyal, Ashish Choubey, Vikas Jain, Arjun Pathak

Respondents: Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta; Deputy Solicitor General of India Romesh Dave; Senior Advocate Rupesh Kumar; Advocates Pankhuri Shrivastava, Diksha Paliwal, Bhumika Dwivedi, Atharava Dave