Dismissing a plea submitted by a section of students to reschedule the national level medical entrance exam NEET, the Supreme Court said the exam will be held as per the slated date on September 12th with no changes.
Petitioners had reasoned that NEET would clash with the ongoing state-entrance exams, CBSE 12th boards for the private sectors and other correspondence exams. However, Monday’s order came as a disappointment to the students. The top court refused to postpone the exams saying that the order cannot be passed “on the plea on a few students” as more than 16 lakh students write NEET.
The SC bench comprising of Justice Hrishikesh Roy, Justice CT Ravikumar and Justice AM Khanwilkar said, “We will not entertain this petition. We do not want uncertainty. Let the exam continue.”
Speculations around rescheduling of exams were going around for a while after the competitive test slated earlier for August 1st was postponed to September 12th following students’ requests. However, they urged for the exams to be pushed till October to allow students to get over with their other examinations.
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The National Testing Agency (NTA) had asked students to keep no hopes of the exams being postponed. They further allowed students yet to receive their CBSE exam scores to appear for NEET, even if the results do not get released by that time. The agency said that the marks will be required only during the counselling sessions.
Advocate Sumanth Nookala said in the plea that the September 12th NEET schedule would be “manifestly arbitrary and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.” The petition requested for the exam to be shifted to a date after the ongoing exams.
The NTA officials had asked students to stay prepared for the exam as there doesn’t seem to be a chance for rescheduling. Hashtags like #DelayNEET, #RescheduleNEET, #ShiftNEET, #JusticeforNEETUGAspirants, etc were trending after angry students took to social media to protest following the ministry’s refusal to entertain the plea.
Students also sought additional time to prepare for NEET as the exam pattern has been tweaked this year. In a bid to offer more choices for students to choose from and answer, the NTA changed the pattern. With this, though the questions to be attempted remain the same, the number of total questions will increase. The new pattern gives less than one minute for students to attempt one question.
They also complained that the third wave, which is worried to be set in during the September-October timeframe, will affect students’ appearance in the exam. Overcrowding of students due to the increase in the total number of people writing it this year will increase risks of infection as NEET is an offline paper-pen based examination.
The monsoon season and heavy flooding that come with it only mount on the worries of students as they say the extreme weather and waters do not allow many students to reach the centre.
