The
Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea to delay the 2024 NEET-PG exam,
scheduled for August 11. The petition argued that the assigned exam cities were
too inconvenient for some candidates.
Chief
Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, along with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj
Misra, said that it would be unjust to risk the future of 200,000 students for
the sake of five individuals.
The bench said,
"How can we postpone such an exam? Sanjay Hegde, nowadays, people just
come asking to postpone the exam. It's not a perfect world. We are not academic
experts."
It
further said, "As a matter of principle, we will not reschedule the exam.
There are 200,000 students and 400,000 parents who will weep over the weekend
if we postpone it. We cannot put the careers of so many candidates in jeopardy.
We do not know who is behind these petitions."
Senior
advocate Sanjay Hegde, representing the petitioners, argued that rescheduling
the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Postgraduate) (NEET-PG) is
necessary due to the presence of one exam scheduled for the morning and another
for the afternoon.
The
petition said that many candidates have been assigned cities that are highly
inconvenient to reach. It noted that while the cities were assigned on July 31,
the specific exam centres will be announced on August 8.
Originally set for June
23, the exam was postponed by the Union Health Ministry as a precautionary
measure following reported irregularities in other competitive exams.
The NEET-PG exam for
2024 will be conducted at 500 "trusted" exam centres this year.
According to the National Board of Examinations (NBE), the exam, set for August
11, will be conducted in two shifts for the first time. This change comes after
a cut in the number of centres from 1,200. The NBE has decided to avoid
outsourcing exam centres due to previous issues with paper leaks.