Further Extension of MBBS Internship deadline will disrupt entire academic schedule: Supreme Court
New Delhi: Observing that further extending the internship completion deadline for the NEET-PG aspirants would disrupt the entire academic schedule, the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea by a group of doctors.
The bench was considering a plea by a group of NEET-PG aspirants whose internship got delayed as a result of the COVID duties.
Apart from this, the top court bench comprising of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant, and Bela M Trivedi also opined that the alternative prayer for inclusion of COVID duties would also involve the court to micro-manage the curriculum.
The bench was quoted saying by PTI, "Whenever there is a cut-off some students are likely to fall on either side of the dividing line. Any extension of the cut-off would result in the disruption of the education schedule".
"Though there will undoubtedly be an element of hardship, it would not be possible at this stage to disrupt the education of a large body of students. Hence, in our considered view it would not be appropriate to interfere", the bench added.
At the outset, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati said that July 31 is the date to which the internship can be extended.
"The examination is scheduled to be held in May and the counselling is scheduled to be held in the third and fourth week of July. Classes are scheduled to start from the first or second week of August. If the internship deadline is extended beyond July 31, then the entire academic session is bound to be disrupted", she said.
Bhati, however, said that during normal times the deadline is March 31 but considering the pandemic situation, this year it has been extended.
The bench agreed with the law officer that the entire academic session will get affected and said, "If we accept petitioner's submission everything will go for a toss and would have a cascading effect".
Senior advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan said that petitioners could not do the internship earlier as they were engaged in COVID duties after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an appeal last year.
He said that one way to deal with the problem is to allow the COVID duties to be treated as a period of internship.
Bhati opposed the submission and said that COVID duties cannot be accepted as it does not cover all the specialities and accepting the submission would amount to diluting the internship programmes.
Sankaranarayanan said that the government has to put its act together and must come out with some generosity.
"When you require people for COVID requirements, you ask these doctors to go and join the COVID duties. Now one year has been wasted", he said.
Initially, the deadline for internship was May 31, which was extended later to July 31 after the court directed the Centre to consider the representation.
Medical Dialogues had MBBS graduates had preferred an appeal before the top court seeking postponement of the NEET PG 2022 examination as they had ponted out that the exam date was clashing with NEET PG 2021 counselling schedule.
The plea had also referred to the fact that hundreds of MBBS graduates would not be able to appear in the entrance examination, scheduled on March 12, 2022, as their mandatory MBBS internship training will stand incomplete. Apart from seeking postponement of the examination, the medicos had also prayed for an extension of the deadline for completing the internship from May 31.
Meanwhile, due to the intervention of the Union Health Ministry, the NEET PG 2022 exam got postponed by 6-8 weeks and now it has been rescheduled on May 21.
Following this, the top court had asked the students to approach the Union Health Ministry regarding the other prayer i.e. extension of MBBS internship deadline. Consequently, the National Board of Examinations (NBE) had extended the deadline until July 31, 2022.
However, in a recent plea, the doctors prayer for further extension of the deadline and sought directions from the top court to allow the candidates who fail to complete the internship by July 31 but are eligible as per the criteria.
The plea said that the revised deadline of July 31, 2022 leaves behind thousands of candidates particularly from the state of Bihar, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and Kerala (among other states) as ineligible to apply for NEET-PG as they would not be able to conclude their internship within the stipulated time.
However, the bench dismissed the plea saying, "Whenever there is a cut-off some students are likely to fall on either line of dividing line. Any extension of the cut off would result in the disruption of the education schedule as indicated by the Additional Solicitor General. The alternative prayer for including of CoVID duties in internship would also involve the court to micromanage the curriculum. Though there will undoubtedly be an element of hardship, it would not be possible for this stage to disrupt the education of a large body of students. Hence in the considered view of the court it will not be appropriate to interfere."
"If we accept their(petitioners') submission everything will go for a toss and will have cascading effect," Justice Chandrachud was quoted saying by Live Law.
Also Read: NEET PG 2022: NBE notifies on extension to Cutoff date for MBBS Internship
