While deciding a petition concerning NEET‑UG 2025, the Delhi High Court addressed the situation of a candidate who lost crucial examination time due to technical interruptions unrelated to any fault of his own. The candidate alleged that during his examination, delays occurred because the biometric authentication system failed multiple times, resulting in a forced identity re‑verification mid‑test, which led to a loss of over three minutes from his allotted time. He claimed he had arrived within the permitted entry time, yet was subject to repeated attempts at Aadhaar credentials authentication before being allowed entry, causing him to miss time from the actual test duration. The Court noted that at entry, the biometric authentication procedure was mandatory and that in this instance, despite three attempts, verification failed, necessitating the candidate to vacate his allotted seat and undergo re‑validation, which consumed the exam time.
The Court emphasised that it is unrealistic for Constitutional Courts to undertake per‑candidate reviews of CCTV recordings or related examination footage to assess such technical grievances. Therefore, stressing the need for an expert and transparent mechanism, the Court directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to constitute a standing Grievance Redressal Committee if one was not already in place, where affected candidates could bring their grievances for fair resolution. The Committee would be empowered not only to adjudicate such issues but also to formulate an appropriate formula tailored to the examination context for assessing loss of time or awarding compensation via normalisation.
In the case at hand, the Court recognised that all candidates are entitled to equal time for examination use, and that depriving one candidate of a portion of that time—under circumstances beyond his control—should not be rationalised by claiming that the lost time was not used by the candidate. Consequently, noting that the candidate suffered a loss of 3 minutes and 32 seconds through no fault of his own, the Court directed the NTA to apply the normalisation formula to award appropriate grace marks proportional to the time lost, update his score accordingly, and issue a revised result or scorecard. It was explicitly stated that based on the revised score and rank, the candidate would be allowed to participate in further counselling processes and that this adjustment would not affect any seat allotment that had already been made.
The matter was dealt with by Justice Vikas Mahajan, and the petition was disposed of following these directions.
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