NEET PG 2021 : Supreme Court Issues Notice On Pregnant Students' Plea For Option To Change Centre

A bench of Justices UU Lalit, Ajay Rastogi and Vikram Nath while issuing notice only with respect to petitioner 1 and 2 who are in their 7th and 8th months of pregnancy respectively in their order said,

"Issue notice only with resp ect to petitioner 1 & 2 who are in their 7th & 8th month of pregnancy respectively."

The Top Court also directed the authorities to come up with the decision within 2 days.

Appearing for the doctors, Senior Advocate Kavin Gulati while explaining the scenario when the doctors had first filled their form and requesting for an extension of the window for 24 hours submitted that, "When we first filled up our form we were at the final stage. On 06.08.2021, they said that the new candidates who had filled were allowed to choose the centres & not the ones who had filled the form & were eligible earlier."

It was also his contention that the petitioners had asked the National Board of Examination to change the window for taking the exam immediately after the notification came.

Upon submissions by Senior Advocate Kavin Gulati, Justice UU Lalit asked Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appearing for the respondents to consider allowing the petitioners to change their centres.

"The situation now is that there is a lot of prejudice caused to the people who want to give the exams. Allowing them change of centre and statuses is the least you can do," Justice UU Lalit said.

Appearing for the respondents, Senior Advocate Maninder Singh submitted that a generalised observation could not be made at this stage for all the candidates as admit card was already released.

Filed through Advocate on Record Charu Mathur, the plea argued that the choice of center made by the candidates on earlier location was on the basis of their nearest location to their centres as on April 18, 2021. The petitioners were represented by Dubey Law Associates.

The doctors in their plea have sought directions to the National Board of Examination to allow the candidates the "centre change option" in view of the subsequent events from the date when the exam was last scheduled i.e. April 18, 2021 and allow the candidates who were posted in covid duties or were undergoing compulsory training/ bondas on April 18, 2021 to choose center on the basis of their current location and not the previous posting location.

Relief for directing the National Board of Examination to allow the edit window for change in center with immediate effect had also been sought for.

The plea had also averred that the exact location of the center was informed to the candidates only when the admit cards were released.

"The distance between the earlier chosen city for the centre was totally on the basis of the covid duty posting area and on the basis of other covid related reasons. However, almost after 4 months of postponement of exam, the Petitioners have been overtaken by events and that they humbly place a request for the centre change window as most of them did not made choice of their centre as their base location," the plea stated.

Doctors in their plea had also argued that due to the upsurge in CoVID cases, the final year MBBS students were required to apply for bond service and the candidates who applied for the same had chosen the center as per their posting schedule which is different after lapse of more than four months.

"Respondents failed to consider that owing to the peculiar circumstances of this year, the center change option was also given in INI CET examination, which was postponed after the direction was issued by this Hon'ble Court in the matter of Poulami Mondal &Ors. Vs. All India Institute of Medical Science &Ors. [W.P. (C) 628 of 2021]," plea also states.

It is also pertinent to mention that NEET PG 2021 was firstly scheduled for April 18, 2021 and thereafter it was postponed and scheduled for September 11, 2021.

Case Title: Anju Joseph v National Board of Examination