SC refuses to postpone or reschedule NEET-PG examination: ’2 lakh students, 4 lakh parents will weep’

The Supreme Court refused to postpone or reschedule the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test postgraduate examination (NEET PG 2024) in a verdict on Friday. The exam will be held on August 11. A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra dismissed a plea to postpone the NEET PG 2024 exams and said that it cannot order postponement of the exam a couple of days before the exam is slated to be held.

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"Now postponing NEET PG ? How can we postpone such an exam. Nowadays people just come asking to postpone the exam," the Court said while rejecting the plea.

While refusing the postpone the exam, Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud said, "As a matter of principle we will not reschedule."

He observed that 2 lakh students will suffer if the exam is postponed. “There are 2 lakh students and 4 lakh parents who will weep over the weekend...We cannot put the careers of so many candidates at risk just because of these petitioners,” Chandrachud was quoted by Bar and Bench as saying.

According to Live Law, Chandrachud said, "The simple answer is we all live in extremely diverse - geographically, culturally nation, therefore we have these large exams..."

The Supreme Court was hearing the plea filed by one Vishal Soren. The petition said that candidates were facing difficulties in reaching their exam centres since were allocated centres in cities which are inconvenient for them to reach.

The allocation of test cities was made on July 31 and designated centres were to be declared on August 8, which leaves candidates with very less time to travel to the respective centres for the exam on August 11, it was contended.

Meanwhile, the exam is scheduled to be conducted in two batches and the formula for normalisation is unknown to the candidates thereby causing apprehensions. The petitioner, had therefore, sought that the exam be stayed till the petition is decided.

The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) had cancelled the NEET PG 2024 exam just 12 hours before it was scheduled to be conducted on June 23 after the controversy over the NEET UG paper leak.