Today, Friday, October 25, the National Eligibility Entrance Test for Postgraduate (NEET PG) 2024 case was heard by the Supreme Court. The bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra were present for the hearing.
A short affidavit was filed by the Under Secretary of Ministry of Health, as per Senior Advocate Vibha Makhija, who was appearing for the petitioners. It was learnt during the course of the hearing that National Board of Examination had filed a response too.
The petitioners sought a direction to the National Board of Examination (NBE) to release answer keys and concerns for counselling were raised as well.
Senior Advocate Vibha Makhija pointed out, "The information memorandum is not published and also there is no SOP as to how the exam is to be conducted. Even the States are confused regarding counselling to be conducted," as stated in a tweet by Bar and Bench.
The counsel appearing for NBE clarified that since it is a super speciality exam at the postgraduate (PG) level and there are a limited number of appropriate and difficult questions, the answer keys are not published. "If we start publishing questions and answer sheets every year, all our questions will be exhausted in three years," said the counsel.
The fact that the answer key will not be published was also specified by an information bulletin released by NBE, the counsel clarified.
The bench questioned if an attempt was made to seek answer sheets via a Right to Information (RTI) appeal. The NBE clarified that these are objective-type questions, and are checked by computers with no human element involved.
Senior Advocate Makhija raised the issue of transparency.
"We would have to then hear the matter. We will list it on a Non-Miscellaneous Day," said the bench.
