The Supreme Court on Monday sought a detailed justification from the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) for its policy of restricting the disclosure of actual question papers and answers attempted by candidates appearing for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG).
A Bench comprising Justice P.S. Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe asked the examination body to file written submissions explaining how permitting candidates to retain copies of the questions attempted by them could undermine the integrity and standard of the postgraduate medical entrance examination.
“File written submissions explaining why disclosure of the questions may compromise the integrity of the NEET PG examination,” the Bench told counsel appearing for NBEMS.
The Court was hearing a batch of petitions concerning various aspects of NEET-PG, including a plea by doctors and examination aspirants seeking greater transparency in the conduct of NEET-PG 2026 through disclosure of actual question papers, answer keys and candidates’ recorded responses.
The controversy arises from a corrective notice issued by NBEMS, under which candidates were provided access to their answer keys and recorded responses through numerical Question ID references linked to a master question paper, instead of being shown the actual questions and options presented to them during the examination.
The petitioners have argued that such a mechanism does not enable candidates to independently verify the correctness of their evaluation. Since NEET-PG involves different question sets, with both questions and answer options shuffled across candidates, numerical identifiers alone do not reveal the actual content of the questions attempted.
They contend that the existing arrangement makes meaningful scrutiny of the evaluation process virtually impossible and reduces the exercise of disclosure to a formality rather than ensuring substantive transparency.
The petitioners have also pointed out that other national-level examinations, including JEE, CLAT and AIIMS INI-CET, follow mechanisms under which candidates can access their individual response sheets in the sequence in which questions were attempted.
Accordingly, they have sought directions requiring NBEMS to provide each candidate with the actual questions and options presented during the examination, the responses recorded, the correct answers and the marks awarded.
Defending the existing arrangement, NBEMS argued that unrestricted publication of NEET-PG question papers could gradually exhaust its limited question bank and compromise the examination’s ability to assess candidates’ actual medical knowledge and clinical understanding.
Advocate Neema, appearing for the examination body, submitted that unlike subjects such as mathematics, where questions can be modified by changing numerical values, medical science questions involve fixed concepts and answers. Consequently, the pool of suitable questions of the required difficulty level is limited.
She cautioned that if questions were made public after every examination, coaching institutions could systematically compile them over successive years, allowing future candidates to memorise established answers instead of developing the analytical ability required of medical professionals.
The counsel submitted that such a practice could eventually result in candidates clearing the examination through rote learning, rather than demonstrating the competence and clinical acumen expected of doctors who would ultimately be responsible for public health.
The Bench, however, was not persuaded by the explanation and indicated that the examination body needed to provide a more convincing justification for its position.
Justice Narasimha questioned the rationale behind maintaining a disclosure policy that could potentially restrict transparency, particularly when candidates were seeking access to the very questions on the basis of which their performance had been evaluated.
“What happens to transparency?” the Court asked, adding that NBEMS would have to explain why its examination should be treated differently from other national-level competitive examinations.
Observing that the explanation furnished so far was insufficient, the Bench sought a detailed written response before proceeding further with the matter.
Senior Advocate Shikhil Suri appeared for the petitioners.
The dispute over disclosure of NEET-PG question papers is not new. In January this year, the Supreme Court had agreed to examine a similar challenge to the examination body’s policy of withholding actual questions and publishing only question identifiers and answer-related information.
In the earlier proceedings, the examination body had maintained that its question bank was a limited and valuable resource which required protection from commercial exploitation, particularly by coaching institutions. It had also relied on recommendations made by an expert committee constituted in 2012, which had favoured maintaining confidentiality of examination content.
The NBEMS had contended that disclosure could encourage the circulation of model question papers based on previously used questions, potentially compromising the quality of future examinations.
The present proceedings arise against the backdrop of continuing demands for greater transparency in NEET-PG evaluation. The petitioners maintain that safeguarding the examination’s question bank cannot come at the cost of denying candidates a meaningful opportunity to verify their individual scores and identify possible errors in the evaluation process.
The Supreme Court has now sought a specific explanation from NBEMS on the alleged threat that disclosure poses to examination integrity, keeping open the larger question of how to balance confidentiality of question banks with the fundamental requirement of a fair and transparent evaluation system.
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