Supreme Court rejects plea to hold NEET overseas

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 24

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition seeking directions to the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA) to allow examination centres abroad to hold NEET 2020 for admission to medical courses.

A Bench led by Justice LN Rao asked the Centre to arrange Vande Bharat Mission flights for such students to appear for National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2020.

This year’s NEET was scheduled in May but due to the pandemic, it was rescheduled to July 26 and then to September 13. It will be conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA) in pen and paper-based mode.

The top court also refused to relax quarantine norms for them, citing public health issues relating to COVID19 pandemic.

However, it allowed the petitioners to approach state authorities to seek relaxation for candidates landing from abroad for NEET.

Earlier, the NTA had told the top court that it’s not possible to hold NEET overseas as it’s conducted in “paper book format”.

In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, NTA had pointed out that “…NEET (UG) has to be conducted in single shift at the same time, on the same day to maintain uniformity and, further, the questions papers and other exam materials are to be transported from NTA headquarters to a large number of examination centres in various cities, which would require meticulous planning for safe and secured delivery of the same at the examination centres on time.”

The affidavit was filed in response to a petition filed by parents of applicants for NEET (UG) 2020 working in Qatar.

The Supreme Court had last month issued notice to the Centre, MCI and NTA on their petition challenging a Kerala High Court order dismissing their demand for allotment of NEET centres in Gulf region.

The NTA asserted that the manner in which examinations had to be conducted was a policy decision purely within the domain of the examining body viz., Medical Council of India (MCI) and if examination centres should be provided in foreign countries was for the MCI to decide.

There was nothing on record to show that the MCI’s decision was “arbitrary or illegal”, it said.

Last month, the top court had asked the Centre, MCI and NTA to respond to the petition which demanded that if it was not possible to have NEET examination centres abroad the test should be postponed until the COVID19 crisis was over.

Filed by Abdul Azeez, general secretary, Kerala Muslim Culture Centre, Qatar, the PIL submitted that there were 4,000 such students registered with NEET-UG from Qatar who faced problems in getting their documents attested from Indian Embassy in Qatar.