Institute of Legal and Management Studies

The NEET-UG 2025 candidates who suffered power outage in centres in Madhya Pradesh have approached the Supreme Court, challenging the refusal of the Madhya Pradesh High Court to order a re-test for them.

The petition was mentioned today by a counsel before a bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi for urgent listing. When the bench agreed to list the matter next week, the counsel sought an earlier posting, saying that the counselling is about to start on July 21. However, the bench refused, saying that there are several rounds of counselling and that the petitioners will have opportunities if they succeed in the case.

A single judge of the High Court had directed the National Testing Agency to conduct re-test of the NEET-UG 2025 exam for candidates affected by power outage at the centres in Indore and Ujjain. Since the petitioners were put at a disadvantage for no fault of theirs, the Court observed that a re-test was necessary. The single bench also observed that the counselling process will be subject to the re-test.

However, last week, a division bench set aside the single bench's decision. The division bench took note of a report of an expert committee which opined that even though there was power outage at some centres, there was sufficient natural light enabling the candidates to take the test. The court also noted that only 70 out of the 27,264 students had filed the original writ petitions.