The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider a petition challenging the disclosure framework of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Postgraduate courses (NEET-PG), which restricted access to question papers, answer keys, and candidate responses to anonymised Question ID numbers rather than the actual questions attempted by examinees.
The Bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Vijay Bishnoi indicated that the issue warranted judicial scrutiny on the touchstone of transparency and fairness in the evaluation and admissions process governing postgraduate medical education.
The petition has been instituted by a group of doctors and NEET-PG aspirants assailing a corrective notice issued by NBEMS. Under the impugned notice, the examination authority proposed to disclose answer keys and candidate responses only by reference to Question ID numbers mapped to a master question paper, instead of providing a candidate-wise display of the questions as presented during the examination.
The petitioners contended that the disclosure mechanism was fundamentally flawed in the context of NEET-PG, which was conducted through multiple shuffled question sets with rearranged questions and options. As a result, candidates were unable to correlate their marked responses with the actual questions they encountered, rendering meaningful verification of the evaluation process impossible.
It was submitted that the system undermined the core objective of post-examination disclosure, namely enabling candidates to independently audit the correctness of the evaluation. The Question ID–based display was stated to create an illusion of transparency while denying effective access to information, thereby violating procedural fairness and the right to a fair admission process guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, read with the equality mandate under Article 14.
Reliance was also placed on settled principles of administrative law, including natural justice, reasonableness, and non-arbitrariness, as elucidated in decisions such as Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India and subsequent jurisprudence governing competitive examinations. The petitioners further drew support from the Supreme Court’s recognition of examinees’ rights to access evaluated material in CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay, underscoring that transparency in assessment is integral to institutional accountability.
They submitted that other national-level examinations, including the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), and AIIMS INI-CET, follow a more robust disclosure regime by providing candidate-wise response sheets in the exact sequence attempted, along with correct answers and score computation. The deviation by NBEMS lacked a rational nexus with examination integrity and failed the test of proportionality, they pointed out.
The petitioners sought directions to NBEMS to publish candidate-wise response sheets reflecting the questions as attempted, the answers marked, the correct responses, and the marks awarded, to ensure verifiability and institutional transparency.
At an earlier hearing, the Court had directed NBEMS to place on record the report of an expert committee which had opined against unrestricted disclosure of examination content, citing concerns relating to confidentiality and test security. During the present hearing, the Bench examined the affidavit filed by NBEMS in support of its disclosure policy and indicated that the matter would be assessed on its legal and constitutional merits.
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