NEET 2022 Postponement: Delhi HC to hear matter after 2.30pm

New Delhi: With only 2 days left to the examination, the Delhi High Court has agreed to hear the plea filed by aspirants who have been seeking postponement of the NEET 2022 MBBS entrance test. The bench will hear the plea after 2.30 pm today in the post-lunch session.

As per the schedule, the NEET 2022 admit cards are already out and the National Testing Agency will conduct the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (UG) for 1872341 candidates at different Centres located in 497 Cities throughout the country including 14 Cities Outside India on 17 July 2022 (Sunday) from 02:00 P.M. to 05:20 P.M. (Indian Standard Time). The conduction of the exam is subject to the order by the high court.

Medical Dialogues has been extensively reporting about the continuous demand of aspirants seeking deferment of NEET exam. Although the aspirants have been demanding postponement for months, they have not given any positive response.

Recently, the aspirants listed down all the points for which NEET 2022 should be deferred in the 19 pages long memorandum and submitted it to the Union Education Ministry.

Earlier around 10,000 aspirants had written to National Testing Agency (NTA) requesting to postpone the exam and allocate them with enough time for preparation. Writing to the agency, the aspirants had pointed out how the counselling for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test 2021 was incomplete and the scheduled date for NEET on July 17 is almost clashing with the dates for CUET & JEE Mains.

In order to press for demands of deferring the exam, the aspirants wrote to the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, initiated online petitions, used hashtags such as #postponeneetug2022, #JusticeforNeetStudents, #MODIJIdeferNEETUG, #PMOHelpNEETUGAspirants to reach the authorities.

India Wide Parents Association and the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) supported their demands and urged the authorities to defer the exam by at least 40-45 days. In fact, the aspirants had decided to initiate hunger strike. Some of the representatives of the aspirants reached the Prime Minister's office and demanded to meet PM Narendra Modi to express the grievances of the students.

Now, in their plea before the Delhi High Court, the aspirants have contended, "Respondents scheduled National Level examinations CUET, NEET- UG and JEE in the month of July 2022 having a time gap of 1 or 2 days, wherein the syllabus of all three examinations is completely different."

The action of the respondents in scheduling three major National level examinations without appropriate gap is unreasonable, arbitrary and in contravention of Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution, the plea said.

As per the Bar and Bench report, The High Court will reassemble at 2:30 pm. It will take up NEET case (item 46) in the post-lunch session.