NO NEET PG 2023 Postponement: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has dismissed all petitions seeking NEET PG 2023 postponement and with this, the candidates will now have to appear on the scheduled date, March 05, 2023.

A bench comprising Justices S Ravindra Bhat presided over the matter and issued the order.

The matter of NEET PG postponement had been disturbing thousands of candidates as despite several requests, the authorities including NBE and the health ministry have been denying postponing the examination.

The aspirants have been pushing for an exam date extension to reduce the gap of around five months between the date of the exam and the date of MBBS internship completion.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had also clarified in the Parliament that NEET PG 2023 examination would be conducted on the scheduled date i.e. March 05, 2023.

Later, a few aspirants approached the High Court of Telangana, Hyderabad praying for postponement on the ground that many interns could not be registered earlier as their date of completion of the internship was beyond the earlier declared cutoff date for completion of internship but the same was extended to 11.08.2023 vide notice dated 07.02.2023.

Read Also: NEET PG 2023, NEET MDS 2023: MBBS, BDS Internship Deadline Extended, details

Subsequent to the HC directions, the petitioners submitted their representation to NMC requesting to postpone NEET PG 2023 by 3 months, so that they can prepare for the said examination. A similar representation was submitted to the Director, Medical Education, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with a copy to Chairman, NMC requesting to postpone the NEET PG 2023 examination by 12-14 weeks.

However, their representation could not be acceded to on the following grounds:-

a. The date of exam was already fixed 6 months in advance and a notice in this regard was placed on NBE website on 16.09.2022

b. Initially, when the cut-off date for completion of internship was 31st March 2023, more than 2 lakh students had already registered for exam and had not objected regarding the date of exam.

c. After representations from various State Government/Universities, the cut-off date of internship was extended to 11.08.2023 and surprisingly only 5000 additional applications were received which constitutes about 2% of the total candidates who are going to take exam. Postponing the exam will create problem for 98% of the students who have been studying/preparing for NEET PG Exam and have represented to not to postpone the date of examination

d. All the preparations are over and the test is to be conducted at more than 800 centers for more than 2 lakh students.

e. The Academic Session is planned to be started in July, 2023 or as early as possible after counseling.

Based on the aforementioned reasons, the NMC released its speaking order on Friday, 24th February and disposed off of the representations.

Also Read:NEET PG 2023 Postponement: NMC releases Speaking Order against Representations

The same day, during the hearing of petitions before the Supreme Court, the bench deferred the matter and sought responses from the NBE.

Read Also: SC Hearing On NEET PG 2023 Postponed to Continue on Monday, Here is what happened today

Now, today’s hearing started with the top court being handed over the compilation and an annual report of the 2017-18 academic year.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that out of the over 2 lakh candidates who have registered for NEET-PG, nearly 1.3 lakh students are those who completed their graduation in previous years and who could not make it through PG in the previous terms. “ The previous practice in the past is that the gap between the internship deadline and the exam is never more than two months,” he said.

Justice Bhat sought to know whether the internship deadline was extended earlier as well. “What you are saying is that they should not have postponed the internship? How many time have they postponed the date in the past?”

Notifying the gap between internships and exam date, GS informed the bench, “They did last year also. In pg L of the SLP there is a table which shows the date of exam and date of counselling. In all there is just 2 months gap. This time it is almost 5 months gap.”

“Can you make the request for postponement. If you have not then you were ready to take the exam. So nothing has changed for you,” Justice Bhat affirmed and added, “When I asked you wanted postponement, you said you did not want. Some of them you represent were content with the timeline as it was.”

Informing the bench on the internship deadline, GS added, “2 lakh odd has registered for the exam. Your lordships were concerned who could have just completed the internship.”

The bench noted that the last year’s internship extension was brief and said, “So that pattern is those who complete that year is sizeable but may not be majority. Last year the extension of internship was not that long. Today what is happening is that if you pull the cloth this side something is happening on the other side. How do we balance.”

Defending the NBE’s decision on the exam date, ASG, Aishwarya Bhati asked the bench to refer to the dates furnished before the court. “The date was announced six months back. Everyone who applied in the first window is 2 lakh 3 thousand,” she said.

“Admit card has been issued today as scheduled. We have made chart of 17 petitioners before your lordship. 10 petitioners had completed internship last year,” she contended.

On this, Justice Bhat held, “We will not look at that. We will treat this as a class (action).”

“We want to start counselling from 15.07.2022 without waiting for the August date. The rest would be allowed to participate provisionally and would be considered on a case to case basis. There is no available date in near future with our technology partner. We are trying the set the clock after the two years of pandemic,” ASG further stated.

“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 is only by a minority,” she added.

“NBE plans to commence counselling by July 15 and the students who are yet to complete the internship will be dealt with provisionally,” ASG reiterated.

Taking all the arguments into consideration, the Supreme Court has ultimately dismissed all the petitions seeking to postpone NEET PG 2023 exam scheduled on March 5.

The apex court refused to entertain the petitions seeking postponement, reports Livelaw.