Bombay High Court Steps Into NEET OMR Discrepancy Row: What Aspirants Should Know

A fresh legal dispute has surfaced around NEET-UG 2026 results, and it centres on something every aspirant relies on completely: the accuracy of their own OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) answer sheet. Three candidates have approached the Bombay High Court's Aurangabad Bench claiming that the OMR sheet they were first shown online did not match the one NTA used to calculate their final score. The court has now ordered NTA and the Central government to produce the original, unedited answer sheets so the discrepancy can be examined. This matters well beyond these three petitioners — it touches on how much an aspirant can trust the score displayed after result day, and what recourse exists if the numbers don't add up.

What actually happened

One of the petitioners, who had appeared for the re-NEET exam, says she checked her responses on the OMR sheet made available online and calculated she should have scored around 619 marks. She approved that OMR on the portal after finding no errors. A day before results were declared, however, she received a different OMR sheet by email from NTA that showed far fewer attempted questions in Physics and Chemistry — bringing her calculated score down to roughly 280. She immediately emailed NTA flagging the mismatch, but the final answer key and results were still released the next day using the lower-scoring sheet.

Two other candidates raised similar concerns, and all three moved the Bombay High Court's Aurangabad Bench. Justices Nitin Suryawanshi and Abasaheb Shinde have directed NTA and the Central government to produce the original answer and response sheets of the three petitioners so the court can examine which version is accurate. The matter has been listed for further hearing on July 30, 2026.