CJI Chandrachud-led bench to hear plea seeking postponement of NEET-PG exam on Friday (Lead)

New Delhi, Aug 8 (IANS) The Supreme Court is slated to hear, on Friday, a plea seeking directions to the National Board of Examinations (NBE) to reschedule the Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET)-PG 2024, which is scheduled for August 11. As per the causelist published on the website of the apex court, a bench, headed by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud and comprising Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, will hear the matter on August 9.Earlier in the day, CJI Chandrachud directed the registry to urgently list the matter for hearing after advocate Anas Tanwir, representing petitioners, mentioned the plea for urgent listing.The petitioners seek postponement of the exam on the ground that candidates have been allocated cities which are highly inconvenient for them to reach and the formula for normalisation is unknown to them. The plea seeks details and disclosure of the formula for the normalisation of the four sets of question papers to eliminate any possibility of arbitrariness in the process.”The examination will be conducted in two batches…There is a likelihood that one batch of candidates may face a more difficult question paper than the other batch. Therefore, it is prayed that the formula for normalisation should be disclosed before the conduct of examinations thereby ruling out any fear of arbitrariness,” it said.Further, the plea stated that the allocation of test cities was made on July 31 and the specific centres are scheduled to be declared on August 8, and given such short notice it has become highly difficult for students to make arrangements for their travel to their specific cities.”That more than two lakh students are scheduled to appear in the examination. The examination is scheduled to be held in 185 test cities, therefore, resulting in the non-availability of train tickets as well as the hiking of airfares due to dynamic pricing, thereby making it almost impossible for a large number of students to reach their test centres,” it added.Earlier, the NEET-PG, which was scheduled to be held on June 23, was postponed by the Union Health Ministry in “best interests of the students and to maintain the sanctity of the examination process”.”Taking into consideration the recent incidents of allegations regarding the integrity of certain competitive examinations, the Ministry of Health has decided to undertake a thorough assessment of the robustness of processes of NEET-PG Entrance Examination, conducted by the National Board of Examination for medical students,” the ministry said in a statement on June 22.Last year, the top court had declined to entertain petitions seeking postponement of the NEET-PG 2023 exam.–IANSpds/vd