The Supreme Court on Thursday said that it will hear on Friday, August 9, a plea seeking to reschedule the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Postgraduate medical courses (NEET PG) 2024. The examination, scheduled for Sunday, August 11, faces concerns regarding the allocation of examination centres and the normalisation of marks for two batches.

A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra agreed to hear the matter on Friday on a mentioning by an advocate, Anas Tanwir, seeking an urgent hearing.

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Mentioning the matter for urgent listing, advocate Anas Tanwir said, “This is NEET-PG 2024 matter, scheduled for August 11.” Chief Justice Chandrachud directed, “Please list it for tomorrow.”

Seeking the rescheduling of NEET-PG 2024, the petitioners have contended that many similarly placed candidates have been allocated cities that are highly inconvenient for them to reach and further sought the details of the formula for the normalisation of the four sets of question paper and clarity on ensuring that the normalisation formula is disclosed to the candidates to eliminate any possibility of arbitrariness in the process.

The petition by Vishal Soren says that the candidates are facing difficulties in reaching their examination centres since they have been allocated centres in cities which are inconvenient for them to reach. The allocation of cities, where candidates have to take the test, was made on July 31 and designated centres are to be declared on Thursday, August 8.

Thus, it has left the candidates with very less time to travel to the respective cities/centres for the exam on August 11, says the petition.

“Many similarly placed candidates have been allocated cities that are highly inconvenient for them to reach and further seeking details of the formula for normalisation of the four sets of question paper and seeking clarity on ensuring that the normalisation formula is disclosed to the candidates thereby eliminating any possibility of arbitrariness in the process,” states the plea.

More than two lakh students are to appear in the examination at 185 test cities, states the petition pointing to the difficulties being faced by a large number of candidates.

“The fact that the examinations will be conducted in two batches and that the formula for normalisation is unknown to the candidates thereby causing an apprehension to the petitioners herein. That 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,” the petitioner has stated.

The petitioners have urged the top court to rectify the issue relating to the allocation of the examination centres and ensure that test centres are allocated more equitably and transparently at nearby places.