NEET PG 2024 hearing | Supreme Court dismisses plea to postpone exam

A Bench headed by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud dismisses petitions seeking postponement of NEET-PG 2024 exam. It underscores that it cannot put the careers of so many students at risk because of a handful of petitioners. 

The court says that it is not inclined to reschedule the exam. 

“As a matter of principle, we will not reschedule the exam. There are two lakh students and four lakh 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,” the Chief Justice asserts. 

Addressing Mr. Hedge, CJI Chandrachud says – “Now postponing NEET PG? How can we postpone such an exam?....Nowadays people just come asking to postpone the exam..?”. 

The Chief Justice underscores that it is not within the remit of the court to devise a new exam policy. 

Mr. Hedge apprises the court that exam centres have been cut down from 1200 to 500. 

“NEET-UG matter affects the NEET PG exams”, he says. 

The Bench starts hearing the matter. Senior advocate Sanjay Hedge is appearing on behalf of the petitioners. 

A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra will hear the petitions shortly. The matter is listed as item number 44. 

The Bench is hearing item number 32 at present. 

MPs Shashi Tharoor, Anto Antony, Hibi Eden, and Benny Behanan met Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda in New Delhi on Friday and urged him to establish a NEET-PG examination centre in the State. 

Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal raised with Mr. Nadda the issue of “impractical changes” in the examination centres of NEET-PG candidates from Kerala and requested him to ensure they are allotted centres within their State or in nearby locations. 

Read more here. 

High stakes and large numbers is a deadly combination inviting cheating attempts. Just more policing cannot stop so many determined efforts to cheat. We need structural changes that significantly reduce the value gained by cheating.

One such structural change is to conduct NEET as a two-level exam. The first level exam is a qualifier exam that is taken by all aspirants (say 23 lakh). Only those who qualify (say 5 lakh students) are allowed to write the second level exam which is used to create the rank list.

The first level exam has huge scale but is low-stakes as it does not directly ensure a seat. The second-level exam has high-stakes but a smaller scale and can be more tightly controlled.

Read more here. 

The Bench has risen for lunch and will re-convene at 2 pm. The matter will be heard post-lunch. 

The matter is listed as item number 44 on the cause list. The Bench is now on item 20. 

“At the present stage, there is an absence of material to show that the result of the exam stands vitiated. Data produced city wise, centre wise and comparison of results in 2022, 2023 and 2024 do not show a systemic leak of question paper which indicate destruction of the sanctity of the exam”, the Bench also comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, reasoned.

The top court however said that it is indisputable that a paper leak took place in Hazaribagh and Patna. Both cases are currently being investigated by the CBI and several arrests have already been made. In fact, the CBI informed the court during the proceedings that only 155 students at these centres were direct beneficiaries of the paper leak.

Watch video here. 

Watch: Why did the Supreme Court decline pleas to cancel NEET-UG 2024?

Supreme Court refuses to cancel NEET-UG exam due to lack of evidence, allowing counselling process to proceed.

The ‘first come, first serve’ system implemented by the National Board Of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) has resulted in no examination centres being available in Bengaluru for thousands of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Post Graduate (NEET PG) 2024 aspirants this year.

NBEMS invited applications online on April 16 for admission through NEET PG for medical PG courses for 2024-25. May 6 is the last date to apply, while the exam will be held on June 23 and result will be announced on July 15.

The examination centres were allocated in Bengaluru, Davangere, and Belagavi in the State. According to information from the Medical Directorate of the State, a total of 31 examination centres have been allocated in Bengaluru.

Read more here. 

NEET PG exam centre selection based on ‘first come, first serve’ leaves no seats in Bengaluru city

The ‘first come, first serve’ system implemented by the National Board Of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) has resulted in no examination centres being available in Bengaluru for thousands of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Post Graduate (NEET PG) 2024 aspirants this year.

A large number of candidates who have applied for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for admissions to postgraduate medical courses (NEET-PG) from Kerala are dismayed after the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) allotted exam centres to them in Andhra Pradesh despite their preference for places closer to their hometowns.

Initially, it was announced that the exam will be held on March 3. It was later postponed to July 7. The date was advanced to June 23 thereafter. Hall tickets were assigned to the applicants on June 18. Many candidates reached the centres too. The exam, however, was postponed at the last minute on June 22 evening, apparently following allegations of irregularities in the conduct of NEET. On July 5, it was declared that the test would be held on August 11.

Read more here. 

DMK Rajya Sabha member P. Wilson on Monday, August 5, 2024, wrote to Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda urging his immediate intervention on issues relating to centres allotted for theNEET PG 2024 examination.

Significant challenges were being faced by MBBS doctors across the country who have applied for the NEET PG examination, now rescheduled for August 11, he said. The recent allotment of examination centres in distant States, particularly for candidates from Tamil Nadu, who have been assigned centres 1,000 km away from their residences, has created undue hardships and requires immediate intervention, Mr. Wilson said in his letter.

Read more here. 

NEET PG: Allocate centres for candidates within their States, DMK MP urges Union Health Minister Nadda

DMK Rajya Sabha member P. Wilson urges Union Health Minister to intervene in NEET PG 2024 examination centre issues.

Several candidates including women have been allotted centres in other parts of AP including Kurnool and Vijayawada; places that they did not opt for. They aired issues of waitlisted train tickets and unaffordable flight fares. In addition, hotel rooms had already been sold out. Another candidate, who has been allotted a centre in Chennai, said that some of his friends were allotted a centre in Kurnool and were wondering how to travel so far. “They are apprehensive about travelling by road which will take about 8.5 hours. Train tickets are also not available,” he said.

A candidate who had raised a query on the NBEMS portal requesting a change of test centre after being allotted a centre nearly 600 km away from Chennai received a reply that no request for a change of test city would be entertained. 

The Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association (TNMOA) has flagged the issue that several candidates from Tamil Nadu have been allotted distant examination centres in Andhra Pradesh, while they had chosen centres in Tamil Nadu. This last-minute allocation has made it logistically very difficult - given the lack of availability of train tickets, the high cost of airfare and the centres’ distance from the airport.

Read more here. 

NEET PG 2024: Candidates from T.N. allotted test centres they had not chosen, association flags issue

NEET PG 2024: TNMOA flags the issue of PG candidates from Tamil Nadu being allocated distant exam centres in Andhra Pradesh.

In addition to requesting a deferral of the exam, the petitioners seek the disclosure of the normalisation formula used for the four sets of question papers. They argue that this transparency is necessary to eliminate any potential arbitrariness. 

The NEET-PG, organised by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBES) and its technical partner TCS, has faced several controversies. The exam was cancelled on June 22, just a day before it was originally scheduled. The fresh controversy is now over exam centres and normalisation of scores.