For aspirants of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Postgraduate (NEET PG 2024) admissions this year, the days leading to the exam have been anything but smooth.
The exam, which was initially scheduled to be conducted on June 23 this year, was announced to be postponed “as a precautionary measure” on the night of June 22 – barely 12 hours ahead of the exam.
This announcement came as the Supreme Court of India was hearing petitions regarding a possible paper leak and other discrepancies in the NEET UG exam, and the University Grants Commission - National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) was cancelled the day before, that is, June 21 due to a possible security threat.
Eventually, it was announced that the exam would be conducted on August 11 in two shifts, and the scores would be calculated through normalisation. However, when the test city slips were released on July 31, candidates found that they were allotted far away from their home states.
Medical associations, students, and even politicians like Dr John Brittas, Manickam Tagore, and Shashi Tharoor appealed to the Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare JP Nadda to provide relief to the candidates.
On August 2, the National Board of Examinations for Medical Sciences (NBEMS), the body that conducts the NEET PG reiterated that it would not entertain any requests to change the test cities.
Moreover, candidates also alleged that their test cities were arbitrarily on August 6.
With all these troubles, aspirants moved to the Supreme Court yesterday, August 7, with a petition calling for the postponement of the exam.
Today, August 8, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud listed the case, titled “Vishal Soren @ Bishal Soren & Ors. v. National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences”, to be heard tomorrow, August 9.
Mixed hopes for the verdict
Speaking of the petition, Vishal Soren, one of the petitioners says that his concern is mainly the distance of the exam centres, and the proposed normalisation of marks.
“I have been residing in Delhi to prepare for NEET PG for a very long time now and opted for Delhi as my test city. However, my city was changed to Bhubhaneshwar at the last minute,” he said.
Vishal said that due to this, he now has to travel over 1,200 kilometres from Delhi to Bhubhaneshwar, and 160 kilometres to reach the exam centre. “I would not be able to get involved in the court hearing tomorrow, as I will be travelling,” he said.
Regarding normalisation, he adds that the unclear formula makes it difficult for candidates to know how they actually performed in the examination. “If candidates in the first shift have performed well, but candidates in the second set didn’t, normalisation results in the former not achieving the scores and ranks they deserve, and reflect their actual performance,” he explained.
“We are looking forward to this verdict, as we are aggrieved because of this issue and want the Supreme Court to solve it,” says an aspirant, on the condition of anonymity.
However, another aspirant of the exam says that she does not know what to expect from the Supreme Court. “If the NEET UG verdict was anything to go by, I don’t have hopes this time,” she laments.
What the petition says
In the petition, as accessed by LiveLaw, the petitioners say that candidates are unable to find ways to travel to the exam centres and that the number of allotted cities themselves is very few.
“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,” the petition says. This is affecting more than two lakh candidates, the petition adds.
The petitioners also raise issues about the normalisation process, as the formula used to normalise the scores between the two batches is not made public by the NBEMS.
“There is a likelihood that one batch of candidates may face a more difficult question paper than the other batch,” say the petitioners.
Therefore, the petitioners’ prayers are as follows:
That the NEET PG exam be rescheduled
That the exam be conducted in a single batch, ensuring a fair exam environment for all candidates
That the centres be allocated more equitably and in nearby places
Supreme Court Advocate Anas Tanwir represents the petitioners.
