NEET UG 2026 controversy: The controversy around NEET-UG 2026 refuses to die down. A candidate has approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court, claiming that her OMR answer sheet and final score were changed, bringing down her score from a claimed 520 to just 85 marks.

The case has surfaced weeks after the NEET-UG paper leak controversy, which had forced the National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct a re-exam for affected candidates on June 21. Since then, questions have kept coming up about how exam records were maintained and processed.

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The petitioner, Diksha Devi, took the re-exam after the leak controversy. She has now approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking judicial intervention over what she says are serious irregularities in her OMR sheet and scorecard.

Her lawyer, appearing before a bench of Justice Suvir Sehgal and Justice Dipinder Singh Nalwa, told the court that two different scorecards had been uploaded on the NTA website for the same candidate. One scorecard showed she scored 85 out of 720, while an earlier version had shown 520 out of 720. The lawyer argued that this points to the OMR sheet itself having been altered by the NTA.

NTA's response in court

Arun Gosain, the lawyer representing the NTA, told the court that the petitioner's earlier application on this matter had already been resolved. He placed on record a copy of an email dated July 27 related to the case.

After hearing both sides, the Bench directed that the original OMR sheet and scorecard be produced before the court in a sealed envelope. The matter has been listed for further hearing on August 14.

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How the score kept changing

According to her petition, the NTA had uploaded her OMR sheet on its website on July 13, along with a correction window for candidates. After matching her marked answers with the official answer key, she calculated her own score to be 520 out of 720.

However, when NEET results were declared on July 16, her scorecard showed only 85 marks out of 720.

Confused by the mismatch, she received another OMR sheet from the NTA on July 17. She claims that while the personal details on both OMR sheets were identical, the answers marked on them were different. The second sheet, she alleges, contained answers that added up to only 85 marks, not the 520 she had calculated herself.

The irregularities continued even after she raised a complaint. On July 19, she received an email from the NTA stating her score as 520 out of 720, matching the credentials on her original mark sheet.

Following this, she and her family visited the NTA office on July 20 and filed a written complaint about the discrepancy. She says her result was subsequently changed back to 520. But on July 27, it was altered once again,  this time back down to 85.

- With inputs from agencies

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