'Ignored again': NEET PG aspirants have to wait till January 7 for SC decision on exam transparency

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has deferred the NEET PG 2024 hearing on exam transparency for the 7th time, making aspirants feel ‘ignored again’. Frustrated with the constant postponement of NEET PG Supreme Court hearing, medical counsellors expressed concerns that the delay will cause ‘unnecessary panic’ among students regardless of grabbing a seat.

Taking into account the importance of the matter, the Supreme Court bench posted the NEET PG SC hearing on a ‘non-miscellaneous day’. Despite the decision to hear it on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, the top court has been postponing the hearing, raising more questions on fairness of the NEET PG admission process 2024.

“It's a dead case for this year at least and the least that the court can do in this matter is to set a normal for transparency in upcoming years. Every student has a right to know their original score and the method that was adopted to derive his normalised final score and rank,” Sudha Shenoy, medical education counsellor at SCICON, said.

“The delay in Supreme Court decision on NEET PG 2024 results will cause unnecessary panic among aspirants even if they secure a seat,” Muzafar Khan, another counsellor, said.

“SC is just killing time. By the time the case is heard, the admission process will be on the last lap. Nothing will change. Students have already taken admissions through AIQ or state (NEET PG counselling). Today, round 2 results will be out. By next will most will resume duty in various hospitals across the country and all this will disappear under a layer of dust somewhere in the court,” Ruiee Kapoor, who is also from SCICON, said.

Also read Explainer: How is NEET PG state merit list prepared? NBEMS explains normalisation method

NEET PG SC hearing: What we know so far

During the first hearing, the top court made a note of the last-minute change in exam pattern, far-off exam centres, and non-disclosure of exam content and called it ‘unusual’. However, due to several reasons such as absence of government counsel or simply because the court did not have time to pick the case item listed for the day, the matter was being posted for the next week or month.

The apex court was scheduled to hear the petitions against the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) on December 10 after being deferred for a week, however, it has been postponed again to January 7, 2025, as per the computer-generated tentative NEET PG Supreme Court hearing date.

Meanwhile, the state NEET PG counselling 2024 has resumed in several states where it was put on hold due to discrepancies in the NEET PG state merit list. In total, 5 court cases were filed in 5 states across the country.

Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh high courts have also instructed the state counselling committees to redo the MHT CET NEET PG and MP NEET PG round 2 merit list to add incentive marks to the normalised score issued by the NBEMS.