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

New Delhi: After the Supreme Court's direction last week, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) submitted its response before the Apex Court regarding the allegations of discrepancies and last-minute changes in the National Eligibility-and-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) Examination 2024.

However, the Apex Court bench took note of the fact that there was no appearance on behalf of the Central Government. Therefore, the bench comprising the Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra has asked any of the ASGs to assist the Court.

Adjourning the matter, the Supreme Court bench has listed the further hearing for Monday i.e. September 30, 2024.

Also Read: NEET PG 2024: SC Seeks response from NBE on Last Minute Change of Exam Pattern

"We will keep on Monday. The Union of India (UOI) has to be there. Non appears, we request presence of any of the ASGs to assist this court," the CJI was quoted noting today by Edex Live.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that during the last hearing of the case, while considering the plea, the Supreme Court on September 20 had expressed displeasure over the last-minute changes in the exam pattern by the National Board of Examinations (NBE).

Terming it to be "unusual", the Apex Court bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra had issued notice to the NBE, Union Government, asking them to file their counter within a week.

After several controversies, NBE conducted the NEET-PG 2024 exam on August 11 and its results were declared on August 23. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that recently the NEET-PG 2024 candidates filed a plea before the Supreme Court pointing out how the exam format was changed just one month before the scheduled date and 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.

Previously, the petitioner's counsel pointed out that NBE has not released 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.

Regarding 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."

The petitioners also raised grievances against the new marks normalisation method. On this issue, the plea mentioned, "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.

Also Read: Supreme Court Seeks NBE's Response on Plea Seeking Disclosure of Answer Keys