NEET PG 2024 Postponement: Supreme Court To Hear Plea Seeking NEET Postponement Today

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Friday hear a plea seeking directions to the National Board of Examination in Medical Science (NBEMS) to reschedule the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-PG) 2024, which is slated to be held on August 11, 2024. The examination will be held in two shifts. A bench headed by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud directed the registry to list the matter for hearing on Friday(August 9) after advocate Anas Tanwir, representing petitioners, mentioned the plea for urgent listing.
The petitioners seek postponement of the exam on the ground that candidates have been allocated cities which are highly inconvenient for them to reach and the formula for normalisation is unknown to them. Several candidates have taken to social media platforms and urged the board to revise the NEET PG examination date as well as the NEET PG test centre. The plea seeks details and disclosure of the formula for the normalisation of the four sets of question papers to eliminate any possibility of arbitrariness in the process.
“The examination will be conducted in two batches…There is a likelihood that one batch of candidates may face a more difficult question paper than the other batch. Therefore, it is prayed that the formula for normalisation should be disclosed before the conduct of examinations thereby ruling out any fear of arbitrariness,” it said, news agency IANS reported.  Further, the plea also stated that the allocation of test cities was made on July 31 and the specific centres are scheduled to be declared on August 8, and given such short notice it has become highly difficult for students to make arrangements for their travel to their specific cities. “That more than two lakh students are scheduled to appear in the examination. The examination is scheduled to be held in 185 test cities, therefore, resulting in the non-availability of train tickets as well as the hiking of airfares due to dynamic pricing, thereby making it almost impossible for a large number of students to reach their test centres,” it said.
It is to be noted that the NEET-PG examination was scheduled to be conducted on June 23. However, it was postponed and later scheduled to be held on August 11, 2024. “The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt of India vide its notice dated 22.06.2024 has decided to postpone the NEET-PG 2024, scheduled to be held tomorrow i.e. 23rd June, 2024, as a precautionary measure,” reads the letter. “This decision has been taken by the Government in the best interests of the students and to maintain the sanctity of examination process,” the letter further said.
NEET-PG is an eligibility-cum-ranking examination prescribed as the single entrance examination for admission to various MD/MS and PG Diploma Courses as per Section 61(2) of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 read with Chapter IV of Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023. For any query/clarification/assistance, please contact NBEMS Candidate Care Support at +91-7996165333 or write to NBEMS at its helpline portal accessible through applicant login.
(With IANS Inputs)