Prayagraj 

The Allahabad High Court has stepped in to correct a critical error that impacted the NEET-UG 2025 result of aspirant Akshita Singh. The Court directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to manually review her OMR answer sheet after it emerged that she had mistakenly marked the wrong question booklet code during the examination.

Akshita was issued question booklet number 47 on exam day, but accidentally filled in code 46 on her OMR sheet. Due to this mismatch, her answers were evaluated using the wrong answer key, resulting in her declared score plummeting to just 41 marks instead of the approximately 589 marks she claims to have earned.

A bench comprising Justices Arindam Sinha and Dr. Yogendra Kumar Srivastava acknowledged this as an honest human mistake and emphasized the importance of fairness in high-stakes exams. The Court ordered the NTA to cross-check her responses against the correct booklet and recalculate her marks accordingly.

“A clerical error by the candidate should not result in a life-changing disadvantage. The evaluation must reflect the answers given, not the mistake in marking booklet code,” the judges remarked.

This ruling highlights the judiciary’s readiness to ensure that automated systems do not unfairly penalize students for genuine errors under pressure. It also clarifies that while the Supreme Court avoids interference in individual cases without systemic irregularity, High Courts remain accessible for such specific grievances.

The NTA has been asked to complete the manual reassessment and report back to the Court in a sealed cover.