The Jabalpur bench of the Madhya Pradesh (MP) High Court directed the state to conduct the "first round of counselling" for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Postgraduates (NEET-PG), Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery (MD/MS) courses but said that the results not be declared until November 28, reported LiveLaw.
This ruling came in response to a petition raising concerns over not adopting the 'normalisation process' for the second time, which the petitioners claim, had caused an anomaly in the state merit list.
In their plea, the petitioners had challenged the merit list issued by the state for MP State Registered Candidates for NEET-PG Counselling (MD/MS Course) - 2024.
Supreme Court's judgement
In its judgement, the Supreme Court stated that the normalisation process could only be applied when preparing the select list, and this would be possible after all stages of the examination were completed.
The bench, therefore, directed the state to carry on with the first round of counselling, but withhold the declaration of results until the completion of the hearing.
Petitioners' contention
The petitioners contended that NEET-PG 2024 which was conducted in two shifts, used the normalisation process to publish results. With the normalisation of scores again being done by the state impacts their merit-based ranking.
It was further contended that whether candidates for the examination being in-service category candidates have received equal 30% marks for serving in the rural areas.
Therefore, they wanted a temporary halt to the first round of counselling until the hearing.
State's response
The Additional Advocate General, representing the state, argued that the state-specific merit list was created using the normalisation process developed at the all-India level, reported LiveLaw.
Providing clarification he said that the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS), New Delhi, had prepared and forwarded the state merit list.
The state-specific percentile and rank were recalculated after incentivised marks were applied through the normalisation process for the second time.
The respondent further argued that the newly calculated state-specific percentile and rank could not be compared with the All-India NEET-PG 2024 percentile and rank, including the all-India inter-se merit list.
