The Supreme Court on Monday asked the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to explain why it was continuing to insist on a limited disclosure of question and answers attempted by those who take the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Post Graduate exams (NEET PG).
A Bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe has sought a written response on how allowing candidates to retain a copy of the question paper could compromise the integrity of exam.
"File written submissions explaining why disclosure of the questions may compromise the integrity of the NEET PG examination," the Court told the NBEM's counsel.
The Court was hearing a batch of petitions concerning NEET-PG examinations, including a plea seeking greater transparency in NEET-PG 2026 by disclosing question papers, answer keys and candidates’ recorded responses.
The plea was filed by doctors and NEET-PG aspirants against a corrective notice issued by the NBEMS which said it will display answer keys and candidates’ responses only through “Question ID numbers” from a master question paper, rather than showing the actual questions attempted by candidates during the exam.
According to the petitioners, this format of disclosure prevents candidates from seeing a clear, candidate-wise view of the questions they actually attempted, since different candidates are given different sets of question papers.
Since the exam is conducted with shuffled questions and options, candidates are unable to properly match their responses with the questions. The current disclosure mechanism, therefore, defeats the purpose of transparency in the examination process, the petitioners contended.
According to the plea, the question-ID only display renders the disclosure illusory and non-verifiable.
The petitioners added that this practice is contrary to the approach taken in other national examinations such as JEE, CLAT, and AIIMS INI-CET, where candidate-wise response sheets are disclosed in the order attempted.
Thus, the petitioners sought directions to ensure a candidate-wise display showing the questions as attempted, the responses marked, the correct answers and the marks awarded.
The NBEM's counsel, advocate Neema, today defended the current disclosure system by arguing that if all questions are published, it could adversely affect how NEET candidates' merit is tested in future.
"This question bank for NEET PG. This is not mathematics. These subjects are science, these are fixed question to fixed answer. The questions are very limited. If we keep disclosing them year after year, then in the next five to six years, all our questions will reach coaching institutes in Kota. We will get doctors who have only learnt the answers by rote. This is a difficult paper. We want to test their acumen. They will be dealing with public health," she said.
The Court, however, said that it was not convinced by this stance and sought a detailed written response.
"What happens to transparency?... You need much more explanation of what you are doing. We are not fully satisfied. You will have to explain to us exactly why you stand on a different footing from any other examination," Justice Narasimha told the NBEM's counsel, before adjourning the matter.
Senior Advocate Shikhil Suri represented the petitioners.
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