India, July 24 -- The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to clarify by July 28 whether an alleged error occurred in the evaluation of a NEET (UG) 2026 candidate's answer sheet after a Hooghly student claimed she was awarded over 370 marks less than what she deserved. Justice Amrita Sinha passed the direction while hearing a petition filed by Sreja Mahanti of Arambagh, observing that the matter required an urgent response as the national medical admission counselling process is already in progress. Mahanti had appeared for the re-conducted NEET (UG) examination on June 21 after the original test scheduled on May 3 was cancelled following the alleged nationwide paper leak. She took the examination at Netaji Mahavidyalaya in Arambagh.
According to her petition, a comparison of her OMR response sheet with the final answer key indicated that she should have secured around 661 marks out of 720. However, the scorecard issued by the NTA reflected only 289 marks, prompting her to allege a serious discrepancy in evaluation. Her counsel submitted before the court that the student had already suffered because of the cancellation of the earlier examination and should not face further prejudice if the error was attributable to the examining authority. Despite submitting representations seeking verification of her result, no corrective action was taken, the petition claimed. Taking note of the urgency, the court asked the NTA to file a written response specifically addressing whether the candidate's claim regarding the alleged mismatch in evaluation was correct.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.