NEET PG 2024 Plea Deferred Again! SC to Hear Matter likely on January 7, 2025
Supreme Court of India
New Delhi: There is still no relief for the postgraduate medical aspirants who had filed a plea seeking transparency in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) 2024 examination as the Supreme Court has once again deferred the hearing of the matter.
Even though the matter was listed for hearing on Tuesday i.e. December 10, the top court bench deferred it. The matter is likely to be taken up on January 7, 2025. This is the seventh time that the matter has been deferred since the filing of the petitions in September 2024, Edex has reported.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the plea was postponed during the hearing on September 30 as no one appeared on behalf of the Central Government. On that day, CJI Chandrachud requested all the Additional Solicitor Generals (ASGs) be present for the upcoming hearing on October 4, 2024.
Again, the plea was postponed on October 25 as the National Board of Examinations (NBE) had pointed out before the top court bench that while they had filed a 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. Consequently, the matter was deferred more than once.
Also Read: NEET PG Supreme Court Hearing Postponed Again
As per the latest media report by Edex Live, even though the matter was listed for hearing on Tuesday i.e. 10.12.2024 before the Apex Court bench comprising Justices BR Gavai and MV Viswanathan, it got postponed again. Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of India, Justice Sanjiv Khanna yesterday said that regular matters in the Supreme Court would now be listed from January 2025 onwards considering the "huge pendency in the after-notice matters". Therefore, it is likely that the plea concerning NEET-PG 2024 might get delayed further.
What are the Demands of the Candidates:
In their plea filed before the apex court, NEET-PG aspirants claimed that the introduction of two shifts, normalisation method, and change in the tie-breaker criterion just three days before the examination affected the students adversely.
The petitioners contended that the NEET-PG information bulletin could be amended at the whims and fancy of the authorities and no rules or regulations existed governing the conduct of examinations.
It challenged the National Board Of Examinations’ (NBE) practice of not disclosing question papers, answer keys, or response sheets of candidates for the exam this year.
The plea said that there was a clear lack of transparency in the conduct of the examination since none of the documents allowed students to check their performance, adding that neither the question paper, nor the response sheet filled in by candidates, or an answer key was supplied to the students, and merely a scorecard had been provided.
The petition, filed by advocate Parul Shukla, highlighted that unlike previous years where the candidate used to receive their total score along with the number of correctly attempted questions and the number of incorrectly attempted questions, the results released on August 23 this year did not provide the total score of the candidate.
"The method/manner in which examination under the NEET PG 2024 is conducted by the respondents (authorities) is manifestly arbitrary and against the principles of transparency and fairness in state action as enshrined under Article 14 of the Constitution of India," it added.
The plea said that NEET-PG had never been held in two shifts before and had always remained a single-shift and single-day examination to ensure a uniform examination standard and fairness of the national exam.
It highlighted a "serious patent defect in the conduct of the examination", requiring redressal in order to achieve a clean, transparent and effective system of examination which gives the best candidates.
"The NEET-PG is a multidisciplinary exam where one’s rank also determines their ability to opt for the course and field of their choice. Any slight variation in marks would bar several candidates from specialising in their field of interest," it added.
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 had issued notices to the NBE and Union Government, asking them to file their counter within a week.
Previous Plea before Supreme Court:
This is not the first time that the doctors are demanding the release of NEET PG answer keys. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that back in 2022, the doctors had filed pleas before the Supreme Court alleging serious discrepancies in the NEET-PG 2022 exam. In the plea, the MBBS graduates challenged the decision of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBE) of not releasing the answer keys and question paper for the exam.
The doctors had also requested the court to set up a High Power Committee to examine the instances of alleged discrepancies in the scores so that fairness and transparency in the evaluation mechanism could be ensured. Apart from this, the plea further requested the court to frame guidelines for publishing question papers and answer keys after the examination.
It had also sought direction upon NBE for uploading individual OMR answer sheets in login account along with the question paper and the corresponding answer key, immediately after the examination and provide the candidates with an answer key and question paper for the exam, especially when they file an RTI application.
However, earlier in June 2024, the Apex Court bench dismissed the plea after taking note of the passage of time since the conduction of the NEET PG 2022 examination.
Also Read: Postponed Again! SC Defers NEET PG 2024 Hearing for the 4th Time
