NEET-UG 2025: Demand for re-examination or bonus marks regarding power cuts and other irregularities rejected in High Court

While delivering the verdict, a single bench of Justice Sameer Jain said that the case falls under the principle of "de minimis non curat lex" i.e. the law does not care about trivial matters. The court acknowledged that there were a total of 98 examination centres in Sikar, out of which about 15 centres faced power cuts, affecting about 5,390 candidates. However, out of all these, only 31 students approached the court, which is a very small number.

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The court said that such limited and individual complaints are not enough to declare illegal a large-scale examination conducted across the country. The petitioners said that power was out for 5 to 28 minutes during the examination, which affected their concentration and performance. They also argued that they were in an unequal situation as compared to the students who appeared in the exam without these irregularities. Hence, they should get special relief.

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The state government replied that out of the total number of students, only 0.575 percent of the students complained and the remaining 99.5 percent of the students had no objections. The government also said that an expert committee has been formed, which after investigation concluded that the duration of the examination at the affected and unaffected centers was the same. Not only this, many students also scored up to 600 marks from those centers, which proves that there was no major impact on their performance

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After the hearing, the court said that the power cuts were caused due to circumstances like rain and storm, which are unpredictable natural events and are not under anyone's control. Therefore, the argument that the state government should have guaranteed power supply cannot be accepted. The court also held that the report of the expert committee and the good performance of the students made it clear that there was no systemic irregularity. Keeping all these facts in mind, the court dismissed the petitions saying that the interests of 22 lakh students cannot be ignored in such cases. Especially when the number of students complaining is negligible and they do not have any concrete evidence.