NEET-PG 2022: Supreme Court refuses to extend internship deadline

The Supreme Court refused to allow a plea seeking extension of deadline beyond July 31 for submitting the internship completion certificate for NEET-PG 2022.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to allow a set of doctors, whose internship got delayed due to Covid duty last year, to get registered for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Post Graduate (NEET-PG) 2022 as they fell short of the mandatory one-year internship requirement saying that it is not possible for the court to interfere at this stage.

The earlier deadline for completing internship for NEET-PG 2022 was May 31 but the Centre extended it to July 31 considering the hardship faced by doctors in several states where the start of internship got delayed due to Covid-19.

The completion of internship on or before July 31 was mandated under Clause 4.4 of the Information Booklet for NEET-PG 2022 to register for the post-graduate medical entrance examination. However, the petitioners said their internship was delayed due to Covid duties and sought an extension of deadline beyond July 31 for submitting the internship completion certificate.

“Undoubtedly there is an element of hardship, but it is not possible for us to interfere at this stage,” said a bench of justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Bela M Trivedi.

“Any extension in the cutoff will result in tinkering of the admission schedule. Whenever there is a cutoff fixed, candidates are likely to fall on both sides of the cutoff,” the bench said as it refused to grant relief to the two doctors who approached the court to extend the July 31 cutoff.

The Clause 4.4 of the Information Booklet for NEET-PG 2022 says that the “candidates are required to submit the original Compulsory Rotating Resident Internship completion certificate at the time of counseling/admission in allotted Medical College/ Institute.”

Earlier the cutoff fixed for completing internship was May 31 but the Centre extended it to July 31 considering the hardship faced by doctors in several states where the start of internship got delayed.

The request of the petitioners was opposed by Centre. Additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati informed the court that the government faced “practical difficulties” in accepting the petitioners’ demand as the last date for allowing internship cannot be extended beyond July 31. She said that the NEET-PG 2022 examination is to be held in May, followed by commencement of academic session in August. If the admission process is disrupted, the entire schedule will “go for a toss” and will have “cascading effect” on the Neet-PG 2023 admissions that is expected to begin in January 2023.

Senior advocate Gopal Shankarnaraynan appearing for the doctor-petitioners told the court that thousands of doctors will be deprived in states/UTs where internship commenced late. In Kerala and Jharkhand, it began in August last year, followed by Bihar in October, Jammu & Kashmir in November and some parts of Uttar Pradesh in September.

Shankarnaraynan made an alternate request to exempt the period served by the final year MBBS students for Covid duties from the one-year internship requirement. ASG Bhati said that even this proposal was unacceptable. According to her, Covid duties do not cover all specialties and acceding to such a request will amount to diluting the curriculum.

Referring to the statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 3 last year calling for the services of final year MBBS doctors to be utilised for handling mild Covid cases, Shankarnaraynan argued, “The government needs to show some generosity. It is saddening to see that when you required them, the government asked them to perform their duty. Now their one year will be wasted.”

The petition filed through advocate Charu Mathur said, “While the candidates joined for Covid duties, neither the National Board of Examinations nor the colleges informed them that serving as Covid warriors will delay their commencement of internship and could also affect the registration for NEET-PG 2022-23.” The bench said that it was conscious of the fact that extension of cutoff was a decision in the policy domain. It was for this reason when in February this year, when the court was faced with a similar request to extend cutoff for completing internships under NEET-PG, the court allowed the petitioners to move a representation before the Centre. It was acting on this representation, the Centre decided on February 16 to grant an exemption for completing internship by July 31.