On Friday, the Supreme Court requested a response from the National Board of Examinations regarding petitions filed by NEET-PG 2023-24 aspirant doctors seeking a three-month postponement of the exam scheduled for March 3.
The issue will be reviewed by Justice S. Ravindra Bhat and Justice Dipankar Datta on Monday, February 27.
Arguments of the petitioners
Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing the petitioners, argued that the National Board of Examinations (NBE) had announced the NEET-PG exam date on January 5, 2023, which did not provide adequate time for aspirants to prepare for the exam.
“When you go for counselling you have to show the completion of internship. So, counselling can only happen after 11.08.2023”, the senior counsel submitted.
In response to a query by the bench, the senior counsel stated that more than 2 lakh candidates have registered for the NEET-PG exam. The bench pointed out that the petitioners’ claim that 45,000 candidates would be affected by the decision constitutes a minority of the total registered candidates. According to the lawyer representing the petitioners, many NEET-PG aspirants have not been able to gain enough practical knowledge during their internship, putting them at a disadvantage. The petitioners argued that since these students are currently working over 12 hours a day during their internship, they do not have enough time for adequate exam preparation.
The bench, however, expressed concern about the distress that postponing the exam might cause to students who have been preparing for it.
“Those who have been preparing for months together, if they are told that they should wait for months….. We are also aware when we postpone..the agony of candidates who have prepared…the whole dynamics changes”, Justice Bhat said.
The senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing the petitioners, argued that the problem has arisen due to the varying internship schedules across different states. He questioned why the exam could not be postponed by a few weeks, especially since counselling cannot take place until after August.
NBE’s response
During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, who represented the NBE, told the bench that more than 2.09 lakh candidates have registered for the exam. She also stated that a technology partner has been hired to conduct the exams and if the exam dates are postponed, it may be difficult to find a suitable date as the technology partner may not be available.
The bench clarified that it was not giving any indication of postponing the NEET-PG 2023 exams but rather seeking responses to the concerns raised by the petitioners. The bench also pointed out to the petitioners that they became eligible to take the exams only because of the internship deadline extension granted by the NBE. “In normal course you had to wait for months. Now you have got a chance…and you want to defer the exam”, Justice Bhat commented.
Details of the petitions
The petitioners, represented by Advocate Charu Mathur and Dubey Law Associates, have filed petitions challenging the National Board of Examination’s (NBE) announcement of revised eligibility criteria for NEET-PG 2023 on February 7, 2023. They argue that the announcement was made too late and leaves insufficient time for candidates to prepare for the exam, which is scheduled for March 5, 2023. The petitioners contend that the NBE’s actions are unjust and arbitrary.
The petitioners have alleged that the National Board of Examination (NBE) did not check with all the State Medical Councils regarding one of the most important aspects of eligibility before issuing the notice about the revised eligibility criteria on February 7, 2023. They have also argued that the eligibility criteria has been modified twice by NBE, which shows the oversight and mismanagement on its part of not consulting the state medical bodies in advance, leaving no time for candidates to prepare.
“If NBE had directly released the cut-off date when the information bulletin was released in January 2023, there would have been no issues. How can a candidate who got permission to apply barely 25 days prior to the examination be equal to the candidates who had permission to apply 60 days prior to the examination”, the petitioners argued.
The petition argues that the time gap of five months between the examination date and the counseling date, which cannot begin before the final internship cut-off date of August 11, 2023, would be detrimental to post-resident doctors. According to Clause 4.1 of the Information Bulletin 2023-24, candidates were required to have completed one year of internship or are likely to complete it by March 31, 2023, which was seen as restrictive. Some candidates who would not complete the internship by March 31, 2023, were not aware of their ineligibility until the Bulletin was released on January 7, 2023.
The petition claims that Clause 4.1 made 75% of the candidates ineligible. Ineligible candidates and organizations requested the National Board of Examinations (NBE) to postpone the NEET-PG examination and extend the internship cut-off date to June 30, 2023. However, more than 13,000 candidates remained ineligible, and some of them approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court as the NBE did not respond to their representations. The High Court allowed the petitioners to apply for the NEET-PG 2023 examination, and a similar petition was also permitted. In the interim, the High Court directed the NBE to accept applications without any reference to Clause 4.
On February 7, 2023, the NBE extended the internship cut-off date to August 11, 2023. Within two days, eligible candidates were asked to apply for the NEET-PG 2023 examination. However, these candidates were only given the option to select from cities where centres were available at the time of the previous registration window’s closure on January 27, 2023. Therefore, it is likely that many candidates will not get their preferred centre and will have to travel long distances to take the examination. The petition highlights that if the candidates have to travel outside their city, they will have to take leave from their ongoing internship.
The petitioners have expressed their willingness to appear in the NEET-PG 2023-24 examination but have challenged the NBE’s actions as unjust and arbitrary. The grounds for the challenge are based on the candidates’ suffering due to mismanagement on the part of the NBE, the examination date being released without consulting State Medical bodies, lack of time to prepare for the examination in addition to the already busy internship schedules, inadequate notice regarding eligibility, and the current examination schedule not being conducive to regularizing the examination process as the 2023-24 session cannot commence before August 11, 2023.
The petitioners are seeking to postpone the NEET-PG examination by three months because the counselling process cannot take place before August 11, 2023.
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