NEET OMR tampering allegations cannot be accepted solely on candidate’s suspicion: Chhattisgarh HC

The Chhattisgarh High Court has observed that allegations of tampering with the answer sheet of a candidate of the 2026 National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test cannot be accepted solely on the basis of suspicion, conjecture or subjective belief in the absence of evidence, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

A bench led by Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha dismissed the candidate’s petition, holding that judicial interference in the evaluation process based only on a person’s apprehensions would undermine the certainty, sanctity and finality of the examination system.

The court was hearing a petition filed by a candidate who appeared in the undergraduate NEET re-examination held on June 21 after the original test was cancelled following alleged paper leaks. The results of the re-examination were declared on July 16.

Subsequently, some candidates alleged that the optical mark recognition answer sheets uploaded against their roll numbers did not belong to them, had been interchanged or showed fewer attempted answers than they had marked.

Optical mark recognition is a system that reads answers marked by candidates by detecting filled bubbles or marks on an answer sheet.

The National Testing Agency, which conducts the exam, had said at the time that it examined each representation individually and found that its official records were consistent in every case it had reviewed.

It had also said that...

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