New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday declined to reschedule the NEET-PG examination, which is scheduled on August 11, saying that for a few petitioners’ the entire exam cannot be cancelled and the court cannot jeopardize the careers of lakhs of students.
A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra made it clear to the senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, representing the petitioners', that the court is not willing to entertain the petition.
During the hearing, Hegde said there are four petitioners', who are before the court but he has received phone calls from nearly 50,000 people regarding the matter. "For five petitioners, we have to reschedule the entire exam?", said the CJI.
Hegde replied that there are two exams and there will be two papers, normalisation will happen, and the normalisation is like Duckworth Lewis system, it becomes inherently problematic and in this scenario, each mark counts.
"One mark will make a difference. I do not mind examinations being held the day after tomorrow as long as it is one exam," said Hegde. The CJI said the court will not reschedule the exam and there are two lakh students, and "at the behest of five petitioners’ we put the careers of lakhs of students in jeopardy. We will not do it! Let there be certainty now for these medical students'".
The CJI told Hegde, “We want to tell you something. It is not about your clients. We do not know who is behind these petitions…". Hegde said absurdity is not certainty and the problem is this: one mark will determine whether I will become a radiologist or I will go into forensics.
"That mark is something I should earn. It is not something which should be normalised. When you have two papers….”, said Hegde. The CJI replied, "You are absolutely right. The simple answer is we all live in a geographically diverse, physically diverse nation. Therefore, you have to have these large examinations…".
Hegde said this is the first time it is happening and sometimes a pause to do the work is a good thing. "When two sets of question papers are given to the students: one has a difficulty level of 9.9 and the other has a difficulty level of 9.85. Moderation takes place….", said the bench.
Hegde insisted on the issue with one mark determining the fate of the students. The CJI said Hegde's argument is postulated on an ideal situation and added, "we are looking at a solution to an extremely complex society…". After hearing Hegde's arguments, the bench said it is not willing to entertain the petition.
The plea filed, through Advocate Anas Tanwir, by Vishal Soren and others said that the petitioners and many similarly placed candidates have been allocated cities that are highly inconvenient for them to reach.
"It is further submitted that the Respondent No. 01 (National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences) had announced the date of examination will be on 11.08.2024 and will be conducted in two batches. 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," contended the plea.
The plea said that 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", it said.
The plea submitted that more than two lakh students are scheduled to appear in the 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," it said.
The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET)-Postgraduate exam was initially supposed to be held on June 23. It was postponed by the Union Health Ministry as a "precautionary measure" in the wake of alleged irregularities in certain competitive exams.
