The Supreme Court on Friday decisively rejected a plea to reschedule the NEET-Postgraduate (NEET-PG) exam slated for August 11, emphasizing the necessity to maintain the exam schedule to safeguard the interests of over 200,000 aspiring medical postgraduates.
The bench, led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and including Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, responded to the petition by highlighting the broader impact a postponement could have on candidates and their families. “As a matter of principle, we will not reschedule the exam. There are two lakh students and four lakh parents who will weep over the weekend if we postpone it,” Justice Chandrachud remarked, underscoring the judicial reluctance to intervene in academic schedules without compelling reasons.
The plea for postponement arose after concerns were voiced about the logistical difficulties following the late allocation of test cities on July 31, which left many candidates scrambling for last-minute travel arrangements. The petitioners also expressed apprehensions about the fairness of conducting the exam in two separate batches, fearing potential discrepancies in the difficulty levels of the question sets.
Advocate on Record Anas Tanwir, representing the petitioners, argued for increased transparency in the normalization process used to equalize scoring across different test batches. Despite these concerns, the court remained unconvinced about the necessity of delaying the exam, questioning the motives behind the petition and the potential academic disruption it could cause.
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Originally scheduled for June 23, the NEET-PG had already been delayed once as a precaution following irregularities in other competitive exams. This prior postponement contributed to the court’s decision to keep the rescheduled date fixed, emphasizing the importance of continuity and predictability in academic and professional pathways for medical students.
