NEET PG Postponement: On May 13, the Supreme Court will hear a petition to postpone the postgraduate medical entrance exam – NEET PG. Senior counsel Rakesh Khanna has filed a petition on behalf of doctors seeking an 8-week delay in the NEET PG exam dates. The exam is presently set on May 21. Justices DY Chandrachud and PS Narasimha will hear the petition.
Candidates are requesting a postponement for two reasons. First, they allege that the exam will interfere with the ongoing NEET PG 2021 counselling process. Doctors who passed NEET PG 2021 with a lower rank would have to wait until the final rounds to acquire a seat; however, the application procedure for NEET PG 2022 has already concluded.
The counselling procedure should be completed by May 9, if not sooner, and the exam will commence on May 21. This leaves candidates with insufficient time to prepare, potentially squandering a year. The petitioners are asking for a “fair chance.”
Furthermore, as many as 5000 interns are ineligible to take the exam since they served during the Covid-19 outbreak, and an extension will allow these interns to take the exam as well.
The petition sought an order to vacate the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences’ notification dated February 4 for holding the NEET PG-2022 examination on May 21 and/or to postpone the examination date. It stated that some of the petitioners and aspirants are candidates who sat in NEET-PG 2021 and are currently involved in the continuing counselling process, which is unlikely to be completed by May 9, 2022, given the roller-coaster ride they have been on since July 2021.
The petitioners and thousands of other aspirants are becoming victims of the system and are forced to suffer for no fault of their own, according to the petition, which was brought by 15 doctors who completed their MBBS studies. According to the plea, it raises substantial and important legal questions, such as why should NEET-PG 2022 aspirants/candidates be made to suffer and not be given a fair opportunity to participate in the NEET-PG examination 2022 when counselling for the previous academic year’s NEET-PG 2021 is still ongoing and expected to be completed by May 9.
It also raised the question of whether the petitioners can be barred from even filling out forms for the NEET-PG examination 2022, as the last date for it was March 25, and the petitioners, who were participants in AIQ Mop-UP counselling, did not fill out a form then in the hope of getting a seat, and now after AIQ Mop-UP was cancelled on March 31 due to the fault of the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) and others.
Last month, however, the Supreme Court denied a request to extend the internship deadline for NEET PG candidates, arguing that it would interrupt their academic calendar. The NEET PG 2021 counselling procedure was repeatedly postponed due to an ongoing reservation case in the Supreme Court.
NEET PG candidates are MBBS graduates or practising doctors who wish to pursue postgraduate studies in medicine and associated professions. The doctors had stated in a letter to President Ram Nath Kovind that they will be forced to hand over their renowned medical degrees to the government.
Furthermore, counsel Sandeep S Tiwari filed a writ case in the Supreme Court on behalf of the All India Medical Students Association (AIMSA) requesting a postponement of the medical entrance exam.
FAIMA and the Ministry of Health recently conducted a meeting. Following their meeting, FAIMA’s chairperson stated that the final decision on whether or not to hold the NEET PG test on the scheduled date will most likely be made soon.
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