Supreme Court junks PIL against cancellation of NEET Super Speciality exam 2024

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition challenging cancellation of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Super Specialty exam (NEET SS) for year 2024..A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra noted that the decision of National Medical Commission (NMC) to postpone the exam was not arbitrary and was in line with the academic policy.."Decision of NMC is equitable and cannot be called arbitrary to call for intervention of this court. The court will go by the academic policy evolved by NMC and thus we do not entertain these petitions," the Court said. .However, taking note of uncertainty faced by students, the Court directed NMC to notify an exam date within 30 days and to hold the exam as soon as the NEET PG course of 2021 ends in January."NMC however must take an early decision to hold the NEET SS 2024 exams as students must have certainty and let this date be notified within 30 days and be held as soon as the NEET PG course of 2021 comes to an end," the Court directed..During the hearing today, the petitioner contended that as per the Ashish Ranjan judgment, the exam should have been held in August. They pointed out that if NEET SS 2024 is delayed, the exam would have to be held twice next year.The petitioner further pointed out that only 40 percent of participants in the NEET SS exam every year are from the preceding graduating batch and the remaining 60 percent are candidates who have obtained their post-graduation degrees at an earlier point in time..On the other hand pointed, the NMC said that the academic session for postgraduates scheduled to start in August 2021 had started in February 2022. It reasoned that the NEET SS exam was postponed to accommodate the students enrolled in this session..The Court determined that a direction to hold the exam immediately would prejudice the students obtaining their post-graduation degrees in early 2025."For the NEET SS 2025 exam two batches will have to compete for the same number of students," it added.Therefore, the Court determined that NMC's decision to postpone the exam was not arbitrary and accordingly, dismissed the PIL.