The Union Health Ministry has postponed the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test postgraduate exam 2022 (NEET-PG 2022) by six-eight weeks.
The exam was scheduled to be held on 12 March.
This comes the same day the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear a plea seeking postponement of the exam.
A petition had been filed by some NEET candidates, which stated that the schedule for the exam is clashing with the counselling schedule of NEET-PG 2021-22. According to the petition, it deprives the candidates from year 2021 to appear in the NEET-PG 2022-23.
"It is most humbly submitted that many candidates appearing in the counselling for NEET-PG 2021 are yet waiting for seat allocation and that due to the clash in the dates of counselling and the date of NEET-PG 2022 examination, they will not be in a position to appear in the examination, even if they wish to," the plea said, according to LiveLaw.
Further, the plea had stated that many final year MBBS candidates had been engaged in COVID-19 duties and it delayed the commencement of their internship.
"When the candidates made informal enquiries from the colleges regarding the internship extension date for next year and whether the same will affect the registration for NEET-PG 2022, they were given an oral assurance by the colleges that the same will not clash with registration requirement for NEET-PG 2022-23. However, on January 15, 2022, the candidates were shocked to note that they will not be able to register for one (1) year compulsory internship on or before 31st May 2022, as required under Clause 4.1 of the Information Bulletin," the plea said.
A letter dated Thursday, 3 February, and undersigned by Dr B Srinivas of the Directorate General of Health Services said the decision had been taken keeping in mind the representations from several doctors about the same.
(With inputs from LiveLaw.)
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