NEET-PG 2024| Unusual To Change Exam Pattern Three Days Before Exam; Students Will Have Meltdown : Supreme Court To NBE

The Supreme Court today (September 20) issuing notice in a writ petition seeking measures to ensure increased transparency in NEET-PG Exams, expressed displeasure over the last-minute changes in the exam pattern by the National Board of Education.

Senior Advocate Vibha Makhija appearing for the petitioners argued that the new marks normalization policy that the NBE introduced three days before the exam as 'knee-jerk' reaction. 

She stressed that no regulations are in place by the NBE to ascertain how the exams are to be conducted- instead everything is dependent on a single information bulletin which can be modified at the 'whims and fancies' of the authorities. 

Taking serious note of the contentions raised, the CJI asked the counsel for NBE why the exam pattern was changed just 3 days before the scheduled exam. 

"They are saying you have not framed regulations, everything goes by the brochure and three days before the exam, the entire pattern of the exam is changed how can you do all this?" 

To which the counsel for NBE replied that they "haven't done anything new or unusual"

CJI replied, "It is very unusual! Three days before the examinations? students will have a meltdown!" 

The Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra issued notice in the matter and directed the NBE and Union filed their counter within a week. 

Notably, a similar petition alleging serious instances of discrepancies in the scores for NEET-PG 2021 and lack of transparency in tallying of score cards is pending before the Top Court. 

The matter will now be heard on September 27. 

Advocate Parul Shukla assisted the senior counsel in the matter.

Background

The NEET-PG 2024 Exas was conducted on August 11 by the NBE, the results of which were declared on August 23 with the counselling commencing on September 20.

The petitioners have raised issues of lack of transparency and arbitrary last-minute changes in the conduct of the 2024 Exam.

The plea states that the exam format was changed just one month before the scheduled date and the exam was converted into a two (2) session examination with separate papers for each session which is against NBE's guidelines of having one common examination. 

The plea elaborated on the issue of non-disclosure of exam question-answers :

"There is a clear lack of transparency in conduct of examinations of NEET PG 2024 since none of the documents which can allow a student to check his/her performance are supplied by the Respondents i.e. neither the (a) question paper, nor (b) the Response sheet filled in by candidates, nor (c) Answer Key is supplied to the students, and merely a score card has been provided along with list of attempted correctly/attempted wrongly sections. The students on perusal of the score cards have found discrepancy in the total number of questions that they attempted which are found to be different than what is stated in the score cards issued to them. Thus, there is a basic flaw in the conduct of the examinations which goes to the root of the matter. However, there is no redressal of the above, and an unfettered power has been vested in the Respondents to conduct examinations, without the necessary checks and balances." 

Grievance has also been raised against the new marks normalization method.

"A new procedure for normalization of scores (based on a system applied in AIIMS which has a different kind of paper) was introduced by the Respondents for calculation of scores obtained by candidates in Session 1 and session 2 and for tie breaking it would be counted to the 7th decimal, which is completely arbitrary as two classes of candidates have been created without any reasonable nexus with object being sought to be achieved i.e. getting the best suited candidates their opted specializations."

"The normalisation procedure has completely altered the ranks that students expected to obtain based on their performance in the examination and it has led to clumping of students at each decimal, which would not have happened in case of counting of actual marks. Thus, the specialities will be exhausted on account of some superficial criteria prescribed by the Respondents, which is not reflective of the best candidates available." 

Case Details : ISHIKA JAIN AND ORS. Versus NATIONAL BOARD OF EXAMINATION AND ORS. W.P.(C) No. 583/2024

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