NEET PG 2024: Supreme Court to hear plea seeking postponement on Aug 9, two days before exam

NEET PG 2024: The Supreme Court is set to hear a plea tomorrow, August 9, seeking postponement of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test – Postgraduate (NEET-PG) 2024 exam scheduled for August 11. The petition was filed on Wednesday night.

The apex court will review the petition filed by Vishal Soren just two days before the exam date. The application states that many NEET PG aspirants who are slated to appear for the exam have been allocated cities that are highly inconvenient for them to reach, Live Law reported.

“More than two lakh students are scheduled to appear in the aforestated examination. The examination is scheduled to be held in 185 test cities therefore resulting in non-availability of train tickets as well as hiking of air fares due to dynamic pricing thereby making it almost impossible for a large number of students to reach their test centres” Live Law reported, citing the petition.

Also read: NEET PG Hearing 2024 Highlights: Supreme Court refuses to postpone NEET PG exam scheduled for August 11

The petitioner alleged that it has become highly difficult for students to make arrangements for their travel at such “short notice” as the information about specific centres will be released today with the admit cards. Meanwhile, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) intimated the candidates about the allocation of test cities via email on July 31. These test cities were revised later for some candidates, citing the addition of new centres and the implementation of a two-shift system as measures to ensure student safety.

In addition to deferring the exam date, the petitioner sought disclosure of the “normalization formula” of the four sets of question papers.

Also read: NEET PG Hearing 2024 Highlights: Supreme Court refuses to postpone NEET PG exam scheduled for August 11

The NEET PG exam was initially scheduled for June 23, but the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) postponed it as a precautionary measure amid the NEET UG controversy. The 3-hour 30-minute examination will take place in Computer-Based Test mode in two shifts.

Shashi Tharoor, the Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram and senior Congress leader, highlighted the issue and said that we ought to be able to authorise enough centres in every state so that aspirants can take exams easily accessible from their places of education or residence.

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Taking to social media platform X (formerly Twitter), he stated, “Students are still being sent faraway distances, some even spanning thousands of kilometres. The current weather, challenges of ticket availability, shortage of affordable accommodation and concerns of security and safety place these doctors in an untenable situation.”