Under SC fire, govt agrees to revert to old NEET-SS system

Under SC fire, govt agrees to revert to old NEET-SS system

New Pattern To Be Effective From Next Year

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:07.10.2021

Put under the pump following scathing criticism from the Supreme Court, the Centre, National Medical Commission and National Board for Education in medical sciences buckled and informed the court that the NEET-Super Speciality examinations will be as per the erstwhile pattern for the academic year 2021-22. The changed pattern will be applicable from the 2022-23 session onwards.

Additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati for the Centre and senior advocate Maninder Singh for NBE informed that in deference to the SC's views, it has been decided to implement the new pattern of question and subject-wise distribution of marks, implementation of which from current academic session was under challenge, from the following academic years. As of now, the court decided not to go into the correctness of the new examination pattern.

As many as 41 MD doctors had approached the SC through advocate Javedur Rehman alleging that the government changed the rules of the game after the starting whistle by completely altering the question pattern and subjectwise distribution of marks for the NEET-SS from what it was since 2018 and notifying the changes more than a month after the schedule of examination was announced. This, they said, jeopardised preparations of 12,000 doctors aspiring for super speciality courses.

Bhati informed the court that doubts of the SC about changes being made to benefit private medical colleges were unfounded as from among 414 colleges offering super speciality courses, 118 in government, and 296 in private sector and as many as 802 seats went vacant last year,” the ASG said.