NEET PG Postponement: Supreme Court likely to hear matter on Friday
New Delhi: The Supreme Court is likely to hear the plea seeking postponement of National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) Examination on Friday.
Sharing this information on Twitter, the National Chairman of Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA), Dr Rohan Krishnan stated, "Supreme court is last hope. Supreme Court hearing is on friday.(tentative) NMC is not vry positive. Shall try to persue @NMC_IND."
Previously, Dr Krishnan had informed that the Telangana High Court had asked the National Medical Commission (NMC) about the plea of the students to postpone the exam, which is scheduled on March 5, 2023.
However, in a recent Tweet he mentioned that nothing positive has come out from the representation of NMC to the Telangana High Court. Expressing his hope regarding the Supreme Court hearing, he also urged the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi to intervene in the matter.
The NEET PG aspirants have been demanding to defer the exam while referring to the fact that there is a gap of around five months between the date of the exam and the date of internship completion. Pointing out that that NEET PG counselling cannot start before the completion of MBBS internship in August, the aspirants have time and again urged the Union Health Minister and other authorities to postpone the exam. In this regard, FAIMA had also written to the Union Health Minister and other authorities.
Previously, National Board of Examinations had set March 31 as the cut-off date for completing MBBS Internship. Due to this, several candidates had become ineligible to appear for the exam and therefore, NBE extended the MBBS internship deadline to August 11.
However, despite several requests from the aspirants for postponing NEET PG exam, the authorities have not agreed to their demands. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that recently the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had clarified in the Parliament that NEET PG 2023 examination would be conducted on the scheduled date i.e. March 05, 2023.
While responding to the requests of students across the country for postponing the NEET PG 2023 exam, the Minister informed the Lok Sabha that since the exam date had been announced around five months back, the students should not face any problem to prepare for the exam.
Further, the Health Minister pointed out that in order to ensure that none of the students across India suffers due to eligibility criteria, the Government has extended the cut-off date for completing MBBS Internship till August 11, 2023.
Meanwhile, while considering such a plea seeking postponing the NEET PG and NEET MDS exam, Telangana HC observed that the dates of the exams had been finalised around six months ago. Pointing out that these exams are conducted on an all India basis, the court opined that the postponement of the exams may not be feasible.
However, the bench allowed the petitioners to approach the authorities and submit a representation seeking postponement of the exam within one week. Authorities, on the other hand, have been directed by the court to decide such representations expeditiously. In this context, the HC bench has also clarified that it has not expressed anything on the merits of the case.
A similar plea has now been filed before the Supreme Court bench as well and the bench is likely to take up the matter for hearing on Friday, Dr Rohan Krishnan informed in a recent Tweet.
Previously, while referring to the Telangana HC direction to NMC to consider the plea seeking postponement of the exam, Dr Krishnan had termed it to be neutral.
"If FMGE exam can be postponed 15 days back due to local ELECTIONS , NEET PG can and should certainly be postponed for genuine cause," he had mentioned in a Tweet.
Meanwhile, the online petition seeking postponement of NEET PG 2023 examination has been signed by around 17,000 people till now. The online plea mentions, "According to this if we give exam on 5th March and counseling happens in August..then we have to idly waste our 5 to 6 months, that is almost half a year. And even if the interns are allowed to fill form they will not be getting their preferred or nearby centre for exam as registration was already completed previously. This will cause INJUSTICE to us and also we will loose our valuable time."
