E-Paper
SC directs single shift test for NEET-PG
Supreme Court mandates NEET-PG 2025 exam to be held in one shift, citing fairness concerns over two shifts' varying difficulty levels.
The Supreme Court on Friday directed the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for postgraduate medical courses (NEET-PG) to be held in a single shift, observing the decision of the National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to conduct the examination in two shifts “creates arbitrariness”.
The decision of the court came on multiple petitions filed by candidates appearing for NEET-PG 2025 who sought the examination, scheduled for June 15, be conducted in a single shift. The candidates claimed that in the two-shift model the question papers are set with different difficulty levels which is “discriminatory to some of the candidates”.
A bench headed by justice Vikram Nath said, “We direct the authorities to hold the examination in one shift and also ensure complete transparency is maintained and secured centres are identified.”
The bench, also comprising justices Sanjay Kumar and NV Anjaria, pulled up NBEMS for not identifying enough centres to hold the examination in one shift, saying, “Holding examination in two shifts is unacceptable.”
Senior advocate Maninder Acharya, appearing for the NBEMS, opposed the petitions, saying that holding the exam in a single shift will jeopardise the candidates who have registered for the examination as there is little time left to identify new centres. This year 242,678 candidates have registered for NEET-PG, and finding “secured” centres with the requisite infrastructure and security arrangements to accommodate these candidates will be a huge challenge, Acharya said.
Addressing the concerns expressed by NBEMS, the court said, “The exam is to be held all over the country. We are not ready to accept that in the entire country, considering the technological advancement we have achieved, the examination body cannot find enough examination centres.”
The court ordered NBEMS to identify new examination centres to hold the exam in one shift. “There are still two weeks for identifying examination centres and holding the exam in one shift. Burn the midnight oil and find the centres,” it said.
NBEMS said that the decision to have two shifts was to curb “malpractices by unscrupulous elements”.
The exam is conducted on a computer-based platform and there are no physical answer sheets and question papers for the candidates. NBEMS, however, said there was a possibility of malpractices as the test only contains multiple choice questions (MCQs).
The bench, in response said, “Having two shifts creates arbitrariness and does not allow students to take examination at the same level. It is unfair to have two shifts. Any two examination papers has to have variation.”
Acharya informed the court that NBEMS is bound by the top court’s orders to hold the examination by June 15, as she sought permission of the court to seek an extension. The bench did not pass any order extending the date. However, it said, “It would be open for the respondent to seek an extension of time.”
The candidates, represented by senior advocate Shikhil Suri and advocate Charu Mathur, told the court that the two-shift examination created a lot of problems for candidates as last year, the paper for the second shift was comparatively easy. Keeping this in mind, last year, the method of normalisation was applied. The petitioners argued that the process for conducting NEET-PG 2025 began from March and despite time being available, authorities have not made any effort to conduct the examination in a single shift.
Acharya defended NBEMS’s decision, stating that other competitive examinations such as Common Admission Test (CAT) for postgraduate management programs and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for admission to undergraduate engineering courses are held in multiple shifts. The bench, however, noted that these exams feature over a million candidates, and cannot be compared with NEET-PG which has less than 250,000 applicants.
The respondent also said that the petitions are proceeding on a misconception that the question papers for each shift will have a vast difference in difficulty levels. “Even if the two sets have different difficulty levels, we have a process of normalisation,” Acharya said, adding that any direction passed by the court will impact other entrance examinations conducted on a pattern of multiple shifts.
The bench said, “Normalisation may be applied in exceptional cases, but, not as a matter of routine year after year...Why didn’t you think of this before? This process started in March.”
NBEMS told the court that except for a few candidates, who are before the court, the majority of candidates appearing for the examination do not have any grievance with the two-shift process. The court said, “Even if we find one candidate raising a legitimate grievance, that is enough for us to step in.”
The number of NEET-PG registrants this year has increased 45% from 2020 (167,102 candidates). “The safety and security of conduct of examinations on a computer-based-platform has its own challenges and examination conducting bodies are required to take all possible measures to prevent use of any unfair means by unscrupulous elements to adopt any kind of malpractices,” NBEMS said in an affidavit filed before the top court.
Keeping this in mind, the National Medical Commission (NMC) and the Union ministry of health & family welfare, had decided to conduct NEET PG 2025 examination at limited test centres, similar to the exercise last year, where security and sanctity of examination can be better ensured, it said.
