The Delhi High Court on Thursday, July 14, dismissed the plea filed by NEET UG students to postpone the exam. The petition was heard by Justice Sanjeev Narula, who questioned the counsel for petitioners asking why they were approaching the court with just a few days left for the exam when the schedule was announced in April this year. The counsel replied that the plea was filed after the admit cards were released this week, but the court did not find this submission relevant. The court also questioned why 15 students were petitioning for the postponement of an exam that lakhs of other students were set to attempt on July 17 and that they cannot present a representative Public Interest Litigation on behalf of the other students in the High Court.
The petitioner's submission that floods in parts of the country would prevent students from commuting to the exam was also dismissed by Justice Narula who remarked, "We are in monsoon season. That cannot be the basis that there are floods in some districts. Something or the other keeps happening in our country."
The petitioners also brought up the matter of the packed exam schedule this month, with the Common Universities Entrance Test (begins July 15) and Session 2 of the JEE Main exam (begins July 21) also set to be conducted. The petitioners said that six lakh students are appearing for both the CUET and the NEET UG exam, and about 9 lakh students are writing the JEE Mains as well. However, there was no overlap of dates, said the petitioners in reply to a query from the court. Justice Narula also said that the presence of common subjects in these exams would help students prepare better.
The court also refused to admit the counsel's submission that 17 students had died by suicide due to the exam, as per "newspaper articles". The court also did not take well to the lack of details furnished by the petitioners when making a representation for more space between the dates of the CUET and NEET UG exams. The petitioners said that the schedules released by the National Testing Agency, which conducts NEET UG, CUET, as well as JEE, were unorganised, and there was a lot of uncertainty over the academic calendar due to the pandemic. However, the court said that the schedule had to be compressed this year in order to get things back on track for the next year.
The NTA, for its part, said that postponing the exam would create chaos. "More than 18 lakh students have registered and exams are in 497 cities and 14 of these are outside India. There are around 3,500 centres. Even if the exams are delayed for a day, it would create havoc," said the NTA. It added that the needs of the patients must be paramount, above all competition. The NTA mentioned that students had been petitioning for the postponement of the NEET UG and PG exam over the past few years and cited examples from 2020 and 2021 as well. In fact, the Supreme Court also dismissed a petition to postpone the NEET PG exam this year.
The Delhi High Court dismissed the petition, adding that it did not want to create anxiety among students.
