With the Supreme Court deferring the hearing of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Postgraduate (NEET-PG) Admissions, 2024 to November 19 yesterday, October 25, one cannot help but wonder if the hearing is taking the same direction as the petitions against the NEET-UG 2024.
To recall, after the results of NEET-UG were announced on June 4, many candidates alleged several discrepancies, with 67 candidates receiving perfect scores and six of them having taken the test from the same centre.
This led to suspicions of a probable leak in the examination’s question paper and sparked widespread protests by medical aspirants, political parties, and student organisations in the country.
The matter even reached the Supreme Court, with over 30 petitions, including one filed by Physicswallah Co-founder Alakh Pandey, seeking a probe into the matter as well as a re-exam. A bench consisting of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra dealt with the matter.
However, throughout the hearing, the case was deferred twice. The matter was initially supposed to be heard on June 8. The hearing was deferred to June 11 by the CJI, who also ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file an investigation report of the leak.
On June 11, however, the matter was deferred again to June 18, as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who represented the National Testing Agency (NTA) cited personal reasons.
In the meanwhile, the CBI arrested 48 persons in connection to the alleged leak.
The matter was finally heard on June 18 and June 22, and the bench hearing the case pronounced that there was no widespread leak in the exam, and upheld NEET UG.
This verdict came as a disappointment to several aspirants, who alleged multiple malpractices in the exam. They claimed that the verdict challenged their belief in the judiciary.
Now... NEET-PG
Now, doctors who appeared for the NEET PG similarly allege several discrepancies — although of a different nature — in the exam.
A bench comprising CJI Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra is hearing a petition that alleges the presence of irregularities in the results and seeks more transparency in their declaration, including releasing scorecards, the answer keys and the formula used to normalise the marks in the two shifts.
The hearing began on September 13, and the bench issued notice to the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS), the body that conducts the exam, seeking its response on the answer keys.
On the day of the next hearing in the case, September 20, the matter had to be further deferred, as the counsel for the NBEMS was not present at the court. The case was listed for October 4, but the hearing did not take place as CJI Chandrachud was on leave.
When the matter was finally brought to the court on October 25, the bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra deferred the case for a final hearing on November 19.
In the meanwhile, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) opened registrations for the All India Quota (AIQ) counselling on September 20, but issued no further notifications for the admission process.
Many aspirants claimed that they could not go ahead with the counselling process without their scorecards and marks either, and are waiting for the Supreme Court’s verdict with bated breath so that the counselling process can begin.
With the hearing deferred, many candidates are expressing fears of a delay in counselling and disruption of the academic calendar, which was already delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the constant deferring of the case begs the question — is the NEET PG hearing turning in the same direction as its undergraduate counterpart?
