The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition to postpone the NEET PG 2022 exam, citing “chaos and uncertainty” as well as a “cascading effect” if the timetable was changed.
At a time when the country was barely emerging from the pandemic cloud, a bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud accepted the Union government’s argument that “any delay in the holding of the tests would mean fewer doctors in hospitals”.
“The petitioners are doctors who are conducting their mandatory internship with different hospitals across the country,” said the appeal submitted by Ashutosh Dubey and Abhishek Chauhan.
The petitioners wish to take the NEET-PG examination 2022, which will be held on May 21, in order to choose their career path based on their ranking, preferences, and accessible possibilities in several disciplines of medical science for Post-Graduation Courses.
The petition asked the court to either cancel or suspend the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences’ announcement dated February 4 stating that the NEET PG-2022 examination would be held on May 21.
According to the appeal, some of the petitioners and aspirants are applicants who took the NEET-PG 2021 exam and are currently undergoing counselling, which is unlikely to be completed by May 9, 2022, given the roller-coaster ride they have been on since July 2021.
According to the petition, 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 chance to participate in the NEET-PG examination 2022 when the counselling for the previous academic year’s NEET-PG 2021 is still ongoing and expected to be completed by May 9.
The petition also stated that the NEET-PG 2021 examination was delayed in order to ensure the availability of a larger number of qualified doctors for COVID duties, and that the examination was finally conducted in September 2021, five months after the scheduled date, and that as a result of this delay, the candidates have effectively lost a year of their careers.
“The respondents have erred in not considering that the NEET-PG 2022 examination was rescheduled from March 12, 2022, to that of May 21, 2022, as the counselling of NEET-PG 2021 was not over and overlapping with the examination date.”
The petition asked MCC to announce a new examination date for NEET-PG 2022 within eight weeks, so that the issue of counselling for the NEET-PG 2021 exam is resolved and the NEET-PG 2022 exam does not overlap.
It further asked MCC and the Centre to allow students/aspirants to register for the NEET-PG 2022 exam while they were undergoing counselling for the NEET-PG 2021 exam, with the last day to fill up the form being March 25.