[NEET PG Super Speciality 2021] Will heavens fall if new pattern implemented from next year? Supreme Court to Centre

The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that the sudden change in examination pattern for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) PG Super Speciality exam 2021 sends a signal that medical education has become a "business." (Prateek Rastogi vs NBE).A Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Vikram Nath and BV Nagarathna said that heavens will not fall if the authorities decide to implement the new pattern from next year while allowing the present pattern to continue for this year. "Just because you have authority can it be exercised (like this)? Would the heavens have fallen if it was done from next year? What would happen if a years time would be given to students to prepare. Changing the pattern is in the domain of experts but do it in a way experts should do, not in this fashion. Otherwise it sends a signal that medical profession and medical regulation has also become a business ! We hope better sense prevails," the Court remarked..Otherwise, grave prejudice will be caused to students, the Bench said."Have some concern for the students. What is the hurry? You have an exam pattern which has held field since 2018, so why now," the Court asked..The plea by 41 PG qualified doctors challenged abrupt last-minute changes to the pattern contending that the same was done to favour general medicine candidates.The petitioners challenged an August 31, 2021 information bulletin announcing the change.The plea filed through advocate Javedur Rahman said that aspirants have all along been preparing in terms of the pattern that has been in place for the last three years, especially because on earlier occasions i.e. in 2018 and 2019 when changes in the pattern/scheme were proposed to be made, the changed pattern/scheme was made public almost six months prior to the exam.The plea stated that dates of the NEET-SS 2021 were announced on July 23, 2021 but the changed pattern was made public more than a month thereafter on August 31 "when only 2 months remained before the NEET-SS, 2021 exams to be held on the 13th and 14th of November, 2021."This showed the manifest arbitrariness inherent in this decision, the petition said..In its affidavit filed before the top court on Monday, the Centre had defended the change, stating that the same was done to ensure that seats do not go unfilled.Further, in order to ensure that students are not affected due to the same, it had offered to postpone the exams for January 2022 instead of having it in November 2021. .The Supreme Court today observed that this change in exam pattern has been made to ensure seats don't remain unfilled but noted that such vacant seats are mostly in private medical colleges. "Logic seems to be to fill the seats. Tell us, under 5,000 super specialty seats how many are under government and how many are under private? It is for the management of colleges to see seats wastage etc," observed top court. "The real prejudice is caused to students. There is no plan for future," it added.The top court further observed that the interest of students and the medical profession should weigh higher as they will be the torchbearers of this profession. "But we have forgotten them in this process," the Bench said..Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appearing for one of the respondents, submitted that if an impression has been given that decision has been taken only to fill seats then he would "urge" the Central government to implement the new pattern from next year. .Advocate Prashant Bhushan stated that his client did his MD in Radiation Oncology and now he wants to do super specialisation in medical oncology. "But they say 100 percent questions will be from general medicine. This change is patently discriminatory. It has been done in great hurry. It is the job of the PG Medical board to lay down curriculum and pattern of exam of this super specialty course and they have to be guided by the expert advisory board which is yet not formed," argued Bhushan. .Senior Advocate Shyam Divan also for petitioners submitted how doctors have been preparing for these exams since long and that such last minute changes would be disastrous. .The hearing will continue tomorrow. .Read live account of hearing here..[Read Order]