Medical Council of India, has lodged a reply in the method of an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that any further delay will lead to being a drastic aberration from the academic timetable.
The row over delaying of NEET 2020 is much from over yet. In reply to a plea filed by NEET aspirants asking postponement or termination of the medical entrance exam, MCI, i.e., Medical Council of India, has lodged a reply in the method of an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that any further delay will lead to being a drastic aberration from the academic timetable which may anguish the following academic years of the students & so the appeal should be terminated as the apprentices have the choice to come to India by the “Vande Bharat Mission.”
The petition, contrary to which the Medical Council of India has lodged a reply, has been filed by over 4000+ NEET applicants & their parents from Gulf-countries, who have asked establishing up of more exam Centres abroad in the wake of COVID-19. The petition tells that owing to the postponement of regular flights to India after the Coronavirus pandemic outbreak, medical aspirants are confronting a challenge with regards to moving to India to appear for the entrance exam. In answer to this challenge, the students & their parents have ordered relief from the Supreme court in the form of new exam Centres being set up overseas or delay of the exam until position around COVID-19 regularizes. The proposal has come in reply to the plea lodged by parents of students who are candidates for the NEET UG 2020 entrance examination & live in Doha, Qatar. They have argued the Kerala High Court judgment, which rejected their plea for allocating test centers for NEET in Gulf countries.
A bench comprising of Justices L. Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta, and S. Ravindra Bhat had released a notice to the Respondents last month. The matter is planned for hearing on Monday, i.e., August 24.
The affidavit lodged by the Medical Council of India in reply to this plea has said that the problem of having more NEET 2020 exam Centres abroad was a matter that does not require extravagance of the court. The council says that the Government of India has now launched Vande Bharat Mission, which permits flights & travel to & from more countries. The Government of India, under the Vande Bharat Mission, allowed Indian citizens, involving overseas citizens of India, to come to India by separate flights, the council said while requesting dismissal of the plea.
Notably, the Supreme Court had also said the Petitioner(s) during the last trial, that Vande Bharat flights for coming back to India are being made accessible during the pandemic.
Among other things, the Respondent has stated practical difficulties in organizing the examination outside India as NEET is a standardized examination in the paper-book system, and such consistency has to be preserved for all candidates.
Repeating the submission made by the National Testing Agency during the previous trial, the MCI submitted, NEET 2020 medical admission exam has to be conducted in a single session on a similar day for all the students. Being a medical entrance exam that needs complete uniformity, it is essential to hold the exam at the same time. This makes carrying exams overseas in other countries, not a reasonable option for MCI due to numerous reasons including separate time zones, logistical issues, the confidentiality of test papers being a booklet-created examination, etc. If the exam is not conducted at the same time, the sanctity of the stated examination will be gone, as there will be a likelihood of leakage of questions, includes the plea.
Underlining the logistical problems in putting up overseas test centers, the MCI has presented that,
“It shall not be feasible to safely disseminate or provide question papers at every center around the globe without any prospect of the leakage examination paper. It is presented that, to preserve the sanctity of examination and confidentiality of questions, the question paper of NEET is transferred to centers, around the country, from the Head office of Respondent no. 2, which involves careful thought & planning. It is presented that it is not viable for answering Respondent or Respondent no. 2, to do such sort of preparing to transport question papers across the world and perform the examination.”
It has been further indicated out that the MCI shall not have any influence over the overseas test places as the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, bestows administrative and supervisory powers to perform NEET “only in India.”
The examination is planned to be held on September 13, 2020, as the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development agreed against the rescheduling of the examination. Further, the NTA has ensured that it has made sophisticated preparations for conducting the examination, involving sanitization of test centers, accessibility of individual protective gear, skilled staff, etc.
