NEET PG Supreme Court Hearing Postponed Again

New Delhi: In a disappointment to the aspirants seeking admission to postgraduate medical courses, the Supreme Court today postponed the hearing on the NEET-PG 2024 issue to a future date amid the confusion on the question of whether anyone appeared for the Union of India or not

The plea was filed by a group of PG medical aspirants challenging the sudden change of exam pattern and seeking clarity regarding exam process. Previously, during the hearing on September 30, the plea was postponed as no one appeared on behalf of the Central Government. On that day, CJI Chandrachud requested all the Additional Solicitor Generals (ASGs) to be there for the upcoming hearing on October 4, 2024.

During the hearing of the case today i.e. on October 25, the National Board of Examination (NBE) pointed out that while they had filed a very detailed response, the Union of India had not. 

The NBE's counsel pointed out that the presence of the Central Government was required because, even though NBE had the charge of conducting the exam, the counselling and admission process is monitored by the Centre.

Also Read: NEET PG Pattern Change: NBE Submits Response Before Supreme Court, Next hearing on Sept 30

As per the latest media report by Edex, taking note of NBE's submission, Justice Pardiwala pointed to an advocate seated behind the NBE's counsel and observed, "The Union of India is sitting right there." However, the lawyer got up and responded on a lighter vein, "I was hoping I will not get dragged into this."

The Apex Court bench then asked the lawyer "Will you take notice?" and also questioned, "Is someone appearing...?" Meanwhile, Senior Advocate Vibha Makhija clarified that they have filed a reply and added, "They are appearing but they probably might not be here today."

After some confusion regarding the matter, Justice JB Pardiwala was quoted noting by Edex, "Whoever is appearing, just... speak to your colleague that we will take it up on a non-miscellaneous day."

Meanwhile, during the case proceedings, the petitioner's counsel raised significant concerns regarding the examination process and emphasized the lack of a published information memorandum and the absence of a standard operating procedure (SOP) for conducting the exam. Further, the counsel pointed out that the number of attempted questions displayed on the candidates' computer screens did not align with the scores reflected in their scorecards, which left to confusion and dissatisfaction among the aspirants, ABP Live has reported.

Further, the counsel for the petitioners highlighted that the States were currently in disarray regarding the counselling process, adding another layer of urgency to the hearing.

On the other hand, the NBE officials explained that the answer key for the NEET PG exam was not released due to limited challenging questions available. They further noted that releasing the key annually could provide the students access to all exam questions and ultimately impact the test security, TOI has reported.

The Daily has also reported that during the hearing, it was affirmed that the computers evaluate examination answers, eliminating human involvement in the checking process and ensuring that the evaluation method was purely automated.

What the Petitioners are Demanding? 

NBE conducted the NEET-PG 2024 exam on August 11 after several controversies. After that, the results were declared on August 23. However, approaching the Supreme Court bench, several candidates pointed out how the exam format was changed just a month before the scheduled date and how the exam was converted into a two(2) session examination with separate papers for each session which is against NBE's guidelines of having one common examination.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that while considering the matter, the Supreme Court on September 20 had expressed displeasure over the last-minute changes in the exam pattern by NBE. Terming it to be "unusual", the Apex Court bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra has issued notices to the NBE and Union Government, asking them to file their counter within a week.

It was argued by the petitioner's counsel that NBE did not release either the question papers or the answer keys. She further added that without knowing the correct answers, it would not be possible for the candidates to assess their performances transparently. She submitted that when the scorecard was released, it did not tally accurately for many candidates.

Highlighting the issue of non-disclosure of exam question-answers, the plea stated, "There is a clear lack of transparency in conduct of examinations of NEET PG 2024 since none of the documents which can allow a student to check his/her performance are supplied by the Respondents i.e. neither the (a) question paper, nor (b) the Response sheet filled in by candidates, nor (c) Answer Key is supplied to the students, and merely a score card has been provided along with list of attempted correctly/attempted wrongly sections. The students on perusal of the score cards have found discrepancy in the total number of questions that they attempted which are found to be different than what is stated in the score cards issued to them. Thus, there is a basic flaw in the conduct of the examinations which goes to the root of the matter. However, there is no redressal of the above, and an unfettered power has been vested in the Respondents to conduct examinations, without the necessary checks and balances."

Further, the petitioners also raised grievances against the new marks normalisation method and mentioned in the plea, "A new procedure for normalization of scores (based on a system applied in AIIMS which has a different kind of paper) was introduced by the Respondents for calculation of scores obtained by candidates in Session 1 and session 2 and for tie breaking it would be counted to the 7th decimal, which is completely arbitrary as two classes of candidates have been created without any reasonable nexus with object being sought to be achieved i.e. getting the best suited candidates their opted specializations."

"The normalisation procedure has completely altered the ranks that students expected to obtain based on their performance in the examination and it has led to clumping of students at each decimal, which would not have happened in case of counting of actual marks. Thus, the specialities will be exhausted on account of some superficial criteria prescribed by the Respondents, which is not reflective of the best candidates available," it added.