New Delhi, Aug 9: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking postponement of the NEET-PG examination scheduled for August 11.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said it can’t put the careers of 2 lakh students in jeopardy at the behest of five students.
The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET)-Postgraduate exam, originally scheduled for June 23, had already been postponed as a precautionary measure following alleged irregularities in other competitive exams.
However, the petitioners argued that the rescheduled date of August 11 posed significant challenges, particularly due to the late allocation of test cities on July 31.
The petitioners contended that this short notice left many candidates struggling to secure travel arrangements, especially given the high cost of last-minute airfare and the unavailability of train tickets.
They also raised concerns about the exam being conducted in two batches, citing fears of unfairness if one batch received a more difficult set of questions than the other. They requested that the normalisation formula, which is intended to ensure fairness across different question sets, be disclosed in advance to eliminate any suspicion of arbitrariness in the process.
“The fact that the examinations will be conducted in two batches and that the formula for normalisation is unknown to the candidates thereby causing an apprehension to the petitioners herein. 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,” the petitioner said.
Advocate on Record (AOR) Anas Tanwir, representing the petitioners, argued that the lack of transparency and the challenges posed by distant test centres could disadvantage many students. One of the petitioners, Vishal Soren, suggested that conducting the exam in a single batch would ensure a uniform testing environment for all candidates.
