Supreme Court has agreed to hear on May 13 a plea of doctors seeking postponement of the National Eligibility and Entrance Test for Postgraduate (NEET-PG) 2022. The exam was scheduled to be held on May 21 due to a possible conflict with NEET-PG 2021 counselling, PTI reported.

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After senior advocate Rakesh Khanna requested for an urgent listing of the petition, a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and PS Narasimha announced they will hear the matter on Friday, which has already been scheduled for hearing.

According to PTI, Khanna responded in the affirmative to the bench's question regarding whether the petitioners wish to postpone the examination.

Justice Chandrachud said, “How can we postpone a national examination? Anyway we will hear it next week”.

Khanna said that the matter is already listed for Friday to which the bench said then it will hear it on May 13.

As per the PTI report, the plea filed through advocates Ashutosh Dubey and Abhishek Chauhan said, “The petitioners are the doctors who are doing their requisite internship with different hospitals across the country. The petitioners aspire to appear in NEET-PG examination 2022 scheduled to be held on May 21 for the purpose of choosing their career option as per their ranking, choice, and available options to them under different branches of medical science for Post-Graduation Courses”.

According to the plea, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences notified on February 4 that the NEET PG-2022 examination would take place on May 21 and requested direction that the examination be deferred.

According to the petition, some petitioners and aspirants have taken the NEET-PG 2021 exam and are participating in the ongoing counselling process, which is unlikely to be concluded by May 9, 2022, due to the roller-coaster ride that they have been riding since July 2021, said PTI.

“The petitioners and other thousands of aspirants are becoming victims of the system and are made to suffer for no fault of their own”, the plea said, which has been filed by 15 doctors who have done their MBBS courses.

According to PTI, there is a substantive and important question of law raised by the plea, as to why NEET-PG 2022 aspirants/candidates are being made to suffer and not being given a fair chance to participate in the NEET-PG examination 2022 when NEET-PG 2021 counselling is still ongoing and likely to be completed by May 9, PTI said.

Additionally, it raised the question of whether the petitioners are required to fill up forms for the NEET-PG exam 2022 since the last date for it was March 25 and the petitioners having taken part in AIQ Mop-UP counselling had not filled out a form then in the hope of getting a seat and now after the cancellation of AIQ Mop-UP on March 31 because of the fault of the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) and others.

The petition stated that petitioners could no longer even fill out forms for the NEET-PG examination, and so candidates would be unable to register for the 2022 examination and would be wasting a full year without their fault.

There were also several other substantive questions raised by the plea.

It said, “Thus it is stated that the present petition is filed with an intention to secure the future of the petitioners allowing them to excel in the educational sphere of their life. It is submitted that NEET-PG 2022 aspirants/candidates should not be made to suffer and be given a fair opportunity to participate in the NEET-PG examination 2022 when the counselling of last year's NEET-PG 2021 is still undergoing and likely to be over by May 9”.

The plea further said that there was a delay in conducting the NEET-PG 2021 examination to ensure the availability of a larger number of qualified doctors for COVID duties and the examination was finally conducted in September 2021, five months after the scheduled date, resultantly because of this delay, the candidates have practically lost a year of their careers, PTI said.

“That the respondents have erred in not considering that the NEET-PG 2022 examination was rescheduled from March 12, 2022, to that of May 21, 2022, as the counselling of NEET-PG 2021 was not over and overlapping with the examination date”, it said.

MCC was requested to announce a new date for the NEET-PG 2022 examination after eight weeks so that the question of NEET-PG 2021 counselling can be resolved, and NEET-PG 2022 examination will not overlap, said PTI.

MCC and Centre were also directed to permit the students to register for the NEET-PG 2022 examination as they were participating in counseling for the NEET-PG 2021 examination and the last date to fill out the form was March 25.