This Is Not Perfect World: Supreme Court Rejects Plea to Postpone NEET-PG Exam

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea to postpone the NEET-PG examination scheduled for Sunday, rejecting concerns over exam centre allocation and the normalisation of marks for different batches.

A bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud firmly stated, “We cannot devise a new education policy, and this is not a perfect world.” The petitioners had argued that discrepancies in the difficulty level of question papers between batches could disadvantage some candidates and urged the court to ensure the normalisation formula was disclosed before the exam.

Additionally, the petitioners raised concerns about the allocation of exam centres, which they claimed were in inconvenient locations for many candidates, with final details disclosed only two days before the exam.

However, the Supreme Court highlighted the potential disruption for the large number of students involved, noting, “Two lakh students and four lakh parents will suffer” if the exam is postponed. The bench questioned, “At the behest of five petitioners, should we keep the careers of two lakh students in jeopardy?”

Chief Justice Chandrachud emphasized, “We cannot put the careers of so many candidates at risk just because of these petitioners,” before the court ultimately declined to entertain the plea.

Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, representing the petitioners, argued that the candidates would face difficulty taking one exam in the morning and another in the afternoon. Despite this, the bench, also comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, upheld its decision to proceed with the exam as scheduled.

The NEET-PG entrance examination for medical courses was originally set for June 23 but was postponed by the Union Health Ministry following concerns over alleged irregularities in other competitive exams.