The Supreme Court on Monday refused to postpone the NEET-PG examination scheduled to be held on Sunday, rejecting a petition that cited issues with the allocation of exam centres and concerns about the normalisation of marks for two batches.

A bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud stated, "We cannot devise a new education policy, and this is not a perfect world".

The petitioners argued that there is a likelihood that one batch of candidates may face a more difficult question paper than the other batch, and that the formula for normalisation should be disclosed before the conduct of the examinations.

They also stated that the petitioners and many candidates have been allocated cities that are highly inconvenient for them to reach, as the exam centres will be disclosed just two days before the examinations.

The top court observed that "two lakh students and four lakh parents will suffer" if the plea is allowed, and asked, "At the behest of five petitioners, should we keep the careers of two lakh students in jeopardy?"

The Chief Justice said, "We cannot put the careers of so many candidates at risk just because of these petitioners".

Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the petitioners, argued that it would be difficult for the candidates to take one exam in the morning and another in the afternoon.

The bench, led by Chief Justice Chandrachud and comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, rejected the plea and ordered, "We are not entertaining".

The NEET-PG entrance examination for medical courses was initially scheduled to be held on June 23. It was postponed by the Union Health Ministry as a "precautionary measure" in the wake of alleged irregularities in certain competitive exams.

Source: India Today