New Delhi, May 30 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Friday deprecated the National Board of Examinations (NBE) practice to conduct the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET)-PG 2025 examination in two shifts.

A bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath opined that holding the examination in two shifts leads to arbitrariness and cannot give a level playing field to the candidates.

“The question papers in two shifts can never be of the same difficulty level. Last year, it (NEET-PG 2024) may have been held in two shifts in the facts and circumstances of that stage. But the examining body ought to have considered making arrangements for holding the examination in one shift,” remarked the Bench, also comprising Justices Sanjay Kumar and N.K.Anjaria.

The apex court was dealing with a clutch of petitions challenging the lack of transparency in the conduct of the NEET-PG examination.

In their plea filed before the apex court, NEET-PG aspirants claimed that the introduction of two shifts, normalisation method, and change in the tie-breaker criterion affected medical students adversely.

The petitioners contended that the NEET-PG information bulletin could be amended at the whim and fancy of the authorities, and no rules or regulations existed governing the conduct of examinations.

Further, they challenged the NBE decision not to disclose question papers, answer keys, or response sheets of candidates.

The plea said that NEET-PG had never been held in two shifts before and had always remained a single-shift and single-day examination to ensure a uniform examination standard and fairness of the national test.

One of the petitions, filed through advocate Parul Shukla, highlighted that, unlike previous years where the candidate used to receive their total score along with the number of correctly attempted questions and the number of incorrectly attempted questions, the NEET-PG 2024 results did not provide their total score.

Recently, the top court issued notices to the Centre, NBE and NMC (National Medical Commission) on a plea filed by the United Doctors Front (UDF) challenging the conduct of the NEET-PG 2025 examination in two shifts.

The plea sought the top court’s intervention to conduct NEET-PG 2025 in a single and uniform session, apart from seeking an interim stay on the examination scheduled for June 15.

–IANS

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