Mumbai HC directs NTA to prepare original NEET UG 2026 OMR form over score discrepancy claim
The Bombay High Court has directed the National Testing Agency (State Administration of Taxation) issued the original OMR answer sheets of three NEET-UG 2026 candidates who claimed that there was a material discrepancy between their recorded answers and the marks declared in the examination results. The court also issued notices to the State Board of Revenue and the central government seeking their response to the petition.The incident comes amid ongoing concerns over NEET-UG 2026, with several candidates across the country raising questions over the OMR sheet, recorded answers and final marks. Even as the NTA insisted that the complaints were being reviewed and warned against submitting fake or AI-generated OMR question papers, some students continued to approach the courts claiming that their answers did not match the published marks.Court seeks original records before next hearingA division bench of Justices Nitin Suryawanshi and Abhayasinh Shinde directed the NTA to retain the original OMR sheets and related records of the three petitioners for review in the next hearing scheduled on July 30, 2026.Additional Solicitor General Ajay Talhar, appearing for the central government, told the court that the NTA has been directed to preserve and produce the original records during the next hearing.According to a report in The Times of India, the petition was filed by Richa Prafulla Deshpande of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Soham Nitin Gavte of Beed district and Atharva Jagtap of Dhule district. All three candidates claimed that the marks calculated using the official answers as per the OMR sheet did not match the marks reflected in the mark cards.Candidates claim huge discrepancy between OMR and resultsRicha Deshpande’s lawyer Amit Yadkikar, assisted by lawyers Sneha Yadkikar and Prasanna Jarare, told the court that the 17-year-old candidate downloaded her OMR scan sheet from the NTA portal on July 13, which was consistent with her portal performance in the June 21 reexamination. However, the OMR form allegedly sent by NTA via email on July 15 is different from the version available on the portal.The petition states that despite notifying the National Revenue Service of the discrepancy before the results were announced, no response was received and the results announced on July 16 were based on disputed records. The petitioner has sought verification of the original entity OMR form and correction of the results if required.In Soham Gavte’s case, advocates Sudarshan Salunkhe and Mahendra Gandle argued that as per the OMR sheet and official answer key, the candidate should have got 522 marks, but his scorecard showed only 95 marks. They informed the court that they sent multiple emails to the NTA seeking corrections between July 17 and 19 but received no response.Another petition said the score from 597 would be reduced to 45.Advocate Narendra Sonawane, counsel for Atharva Jagtap, argued that the OMR sheet emailed by the NTA on July 14 showed a score of 597 points, while the published results showed only 45 points.The petition further claimed that even calculations based on the scorecard itself would yield 61 points, indicating inconsistencies in the published results. It also noted that despite filing a grievance through the NTA’s grievance redressal mechanism, the issue remained unresolved.The high court has now issued notices to the NTA and the central government to examine the original OMR sheet and related records in the next hearing on July 30 before taking further decision on the matter.
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