‘Can’t doubt wisdom of medical experts’: Delhi HC dismisses NEET candidate’s plea challenging answer key

The petitioner had argued that the answers to four questions in the answer key were incorrect as compared to her answers, which she said were correct. The petitioner relied on NCERT textbooks for this argument.

However, the National Testing Agency, which checked the NEET papers, submitted that the answer key was created after consultation with medical experts. The body submitted that the “wisdom of the experts in the field cannot be challenged” and even though they were multiple-choice questions, they required application of mind and the answers could not be in a straitjacket formula as claimed by the petitioner.

The high court observed that the answers in the key cannot be termed as “patently wrong”. It further said that if the court has to determine the correctness of the answer key then it will have to consider the arguments of both parties to reach a conclusion. This exercise in itself would result in interference which has been frowned upon by courts in such cases.

“It is obvious from the perusal of the extract of the NCERT textbook relied upon by the petitioner that the answers are debatable, and therefore, it is beyond the scope of judicial review,” the court held. The court also observed that it can only interfere in cases where any arbitrariness is demonstrable on its face (“ex-facie”).

Dismissing the plea, the court held, “The law as settled by the hon’ble apex court as well as this hon’ble court does not permit this court to doubt the wisdom of the experts. This court does not feel the issues raised to be within the scope of judicial review.”

The petitioner had sought a re-evaluation claiming that if the marks were correctly awarded as per the “correct answers”, she would achieve a higher rank. The petitioner was ranked 10,497 in the general category and 25,628 in the NEET all-India ranking. She had challenged the provisional answer key for four questions on September 1 before the NTA but when the final result and answer key were declared on September 7, she found that it was the same as in the provisional answer key.