The Supreme Court on Monday refused to postpone the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test postgraduate (NEET-PG) examination scheduled for March 5, observing that it cannot halt the process when the consequences remain uncertain for several candidates who were not before it.
“Let things stand where there are. Nothing in this world prevents anyone from trying again…It is an evolutionary process. Sometimes it can go wrong…We will just let it lie,” said a bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia.
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The bench dismissed a batch of two petitions filed by a group of doctors, pleading for deferring the NEET-PG exam in the wake of a revised internship schedule that allowed them time till July to complete their one-year compulsory internship. According to the doctors, since the counselling will take place only in August, NEET-PG exam should be postponed by another six weeks to give applicants more time to prepare. Senior counsel Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Vivek Tankha appeared for the petitioners.
The plea was, however, opposed by the Centre through additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati. Bhati pointed out that all administrative arrangements are in place and no other date is available with the technology partner to conduct the exam in the near future.
“Please, consider that we are trying to restore the calendar of two years back due to the pandemic. In the first window, nearly two lakh three thousand students applied. Only six thousand students applied after the internship deadline was extended. So, the demand for postponement is by a small minoritywhereas a large majority is ready to sit for the exam,” she added.
Bhati further informed the bench that the counselling is likely to start from July 15, without waiting for the August date. “The rest would be allowed to participate provisionally and would be would be considered on a case-by-case basis,” she said.
Satisfied with the submissions, the bench decided to dismiss the petitions, keeping the current schedule intact.
During a previous hearing on Friday, the bench had observed that a plea for postponement may impact those who were eligible all this while and have been anxiously waiting for the exam to take place.
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“There is an agony caused to those who have been preparing when an exam is postponed. In our anxiety to balance your rights, we will be trampling on the rights of several others,” it had remarked.
The petitioners had approached the top court contending that the eligibility criteria had been modified by the National Board of Examinations twice, clearly reflecting mismanagement on its part of not consulting state medical bodies in advance. As a result, candidates did not get adequate time to prepare, the plea contended, adding that never in the history of NEET-PG was there a five-month difference between the exam and counselling dates.
