Delhi High Court refuses to entertain plea to scrap National Testing Agency

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a plea seeking directions to scrap the National Testing Agency (NTA) and an investigation into alleged discrepancies in the NEET UG re-examination.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia noted that the prayers made in the plea, which was being treated as a public interest litigation (PIL) after being transferred from another court, concerned personal reliefs.

"From a perusal of the prayer clause, we find that it is a mixed bunch of prayers made seeking relief in respect of the petitioner and also all candidates who appeared in re-NEET exams. Such a writ petition with the mixture of prayers, in our opinion, cannot be entertained," the Court said.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Central government and the NTA and refuted allegations of any malpractice or discrepancies in the NEET re-exams. He added that there has been no tampering with the OMR sheets either, as alleged by the petitioners.

The High Court was hearing plea filed by two NEET aspirants - Rishi Kailash and Fatima Kounser - seeking directions to the government to scrap the NTA and prohibit it from conducting any further examinations of national importance. They also sought directions to appoint an autonomous institution to conduct such exams.

It was stated that Kailash appeared in the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination and found several discrepancies in the process, including tampering of the OMR sheets.

The plea challenged NEET-UG 2026 re-examination results, the re-evaluation of the petitioners' scorecards and the awarding of marks for a dropped question.

However, as the Bench said that it was not willing to entertain the plea in its present form, the petitioners' counsel, Advocate Abhisht Hela, sought liberty to file fresh pleas with appropriate reliefs. Hela said that he will withdraw the plea and file a separate writ petition and a PIL for institutional reforms in the conduct of public exams like the NEET.

The Court allowed the request and said that the plea would "dismissed as withdrawn".