Supreme Court dismisses plea seeking postponement of NEET-PG exam scheduled for August 11

The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) would be conducting the exam in two shifts across the country for 2,28,542 candidates at 416 examination centres in 170 cities.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday declined to consider a plea for rescheduling the NEET-PG, to be held on August 11, saying that the entire exam cannot be cancelled at the behest of a few candidates and the court cannot jeopardise the careers of lakhs of students.

A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, representing the petitioners' as to how the court can reschedule the examination.

Hegde said there are four petitioners but he has received phone calls from nearly 50,000 people regarding the matter.

The counsel questioned exams to conducted in two shifts, followed by normalisation, saying it was inherently problematic as, each mark counts in such a highly competitive examination.

"One mark will make a difference. I do not mind examinations being held the day after tomorrow as long as it is one exam," he said.

"We cannot reschedule, there are two lakh students and four lakh parents who will weep over the weekend. We cannot put careers of so many students at risk just because of the petitioners," the bench said.

The court also observe it can't devise new education policy and this is not the perfect world.

"We do not know who is behind these petitions," the bench said.

With regard to normalisation, the bench said, "We all live in a geographically diverse, physically diverse nation. Therefore, you have to have these large examinations".

Petitioners Vishal Soren, and others asked the court to issue a direction to reschedule the examination and hold it in a single batch to ensure a uniform and fair testing environment for all candidates.

They asked the court to rectify examination centre allocation issues and ensure that test centres are allocated more equitably and transparently at nearby places.

The allocation of test cities was made on July 31 and the specific centres were declared on August 8. The petitioner while appreciating that the same has been done to curb any malpractice in the examinations, however, given such a short notice it has become highly difficult for students to make arrangements for their travel to their specific cities, they said.

They also said the fact that the examinations will be conducted in two batches and that the formula for normalisation is unknown to the candidates.