"Can't Jeopardise Careers": Supreme Court Refuses To Postpone NEET-PG Exam

Dismissing a petition filed by a few students, the Supreme Court has refused to postpone the NEET-PG exam scheduled for Sunday and said it could not put the careers of nearly 2 lakh candidates at risk. 

The entrance exam for post-graduate medical courses, which was initially supposed to be held on June 23, had already been postponed once as a precaution amid the row over the irregularities in NEET-UG. 

Seeking that the NEET-PG exam be postponed again, the petitioners said many candidates appearing for the test have been allotted exam centres in cities where it was difficult for them to reach. They said that the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS), which conducts the exam, had informed them about the city where they would have to appear for the exam on July 31. 

Information about the exam centre, on the other hand, was given only on Thursday when the test was scheduled for Sunday, the students contended, adding that the exam was scheduled to be held in two sessions and the formula for normalisation of scores had not been revealed yet. 

Hearing the petition on Friday, a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices Manoj Misra and JB Pardiwala said it could not order the postponement of the exam just two days before it was supposed to be held. 

"How can we postpone such an exam? Nowadays people just come asking to postpone the exam. It's not a perfect world. We are not academic experts," the court said. 

Nothing that 2 lakh students were expected to appear for the exam, the bench said it was not inclined to ask for it to be rescheduled just because a few candidates wanted it to do so. 

"There are 2 lakh students and 4 lakh parents who will be affected. We cannot put the careers of so many candidates at risk just because of these petitioners," the bench remarked.