NEET PG 2023 Postponement : Supreme Court Refuses To Postpone, Dismisses Petitions | Live Updates [Feb 27]

The Supreme Court will hear today two petitions seeking postponement of the NEET-PG 2023 examination scheduled on March 5, 2023.

Last Friday, the Court had sought the response of the National Board of Examinations on the plea. 

The petitioners, who are doctors seeking to appear in NEET-PG,  pointed out that the NBE initially fixed the cut-off date for internship completion as March 31, 2023, when it first issued the notification for NEET-PG 2023 on January 7, 2023. Later, on January 13, the cut-off date was extended to June 30. Again, on February 7, the cut-off date was further extended to August 11, 2023. The petitioners contend that although the cut-off date has been extended, since the exams are to be held on the initially announced date, the newly eligible candidates do not get adequate time to prepare.

The petitioners therefore seek to defer NEET-PG exam by three months in view of the fact that the counselling cannot happen before August 11, 2023.

The petitioners allege that the National Board of Examination issued the notice without checking with all the State Medical Councils regarding one of the most important aspect of eligibility. It is argued that the eligibility criteria been modified twice by NBE, clearly reflects the oversight and mismanagement on its part of not consulting the state medical bodies in advance, thereby giving no time to the candidates to prepare.

"If NBE had directly released the cut-off date when the information bulletin was released in January 2023, there would have been no issues. How can a candidate who got permission to apply barely 25 days prior to the examination be equal to the candidates who had permission to apply 60 days prior to the examination", the petitioners argued.

During the hearing on Friday, the bench observed that postponement of the exam will cause to hardship to several students, considering the fact that over 2 lakh candidates have already registered for NEET-PG 2023. The bench also observed that the petitioners were not otherwise eligible to appear for the exam on March 5, 2023, and became eligible only because of the relaxation granted by the NBE. Therefore, can the petitioners now seek to defer the exams, asked the bench.

The bench however sought the response of the NBE and posted the matter today.

Follow this page for live-updates from the hearing.