SC fixes May 15 for hearing on pleas challenging lack of transparency in NEET-PG exam

New Delhi, May 9 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Friday fixed May 15 for hearing on a clutch of petitions challenging the lack of transparency in the conduct of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET)-PG examination.

In their plea filed before the apex court, NEET-PG aspirants claimed that the introduction of two shifts, normalisation method, and change in the tie-breaker criterion affected medical students adversely.

The petitioners contended that the NEET-PG information bulletin could be amended at the whim and fancy of the authorities, and no rules or regulations existed governing the conduct of examinations.

It challenged the National Board of Examinations (NBE) decision not to disclose question papers, answer keys, or response sheets of candidates.

The plea said that there was a clear lack of transparency in the conduct of the examination since none of the documents allowed students to check their performance, adding that neither the question paper, nor the response sheet filled in by candidates, or an answer key was supplied to the students, and merely a scorecard had been provided.

The petition, filed through advocate Parul Shukla, highlighted that, unlike previous years where the candidate used to receive their total score along with the number of correctly attempted questions and the number of incorrectly attempted questions, the NEET-PG 2024 results did not provide their total score.

"The method/manner in which examination under the NEET PG 2024 is conducted by the respondents (authorities) is manifestly arbitrary and against the principles of transparency and fairness in state action as enshrined under Article 14 of the Constitution of India," it added.

The plea said that NEET-PG had never been held in two shifts before and had always remained a single-shift and single-day examination to ensure a uniform examination standard and fairness of the national test. It highlighted a "serious patent defect in the conduct of the examination", requiring redressal in order to achieve a clean, transparent and effective system of examination which gives the best candidates.

On Monday, a bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and KV Viswanathan issued notices to the Centre, NBE and NMC (National Medical Commission) on a plea filed by the United Doctors Front (UDF) challenging the conduct of the NEET-PG 2025 examination in two shifts. The plea sought the top court’s intervention to conduct NEET-PG 2025 in a single and uniform session, apart from seeking an interim stay on the examination scheduled for June 15.

As per the computerised case status, UDF’s plea is tentatively coming up for hearing on May 20.

--IANS

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