Sympathy not enough to grant relief, will open floodgates: Madras High Court declines to extend date to complete internship mandatory for NEET PG

Sympathy alone is not enough to issue positive directions, observed the Madras High Court on Monday while declining to grant relief to a medical student who sought an extension of the cut-off date to complete a medical internship mandatory to write the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for Post Graduate (PG) medical admissions, 2021 (GA Vishwajeet v. Union of India and ors)..Justice N Anand Venkatesh added that it would be very difficult for courts to interfere in every such administrative decision, and that decisions such as fixing a cut-off date is completely out of the purview of a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. ."This Court is sympathetic to the passionate claim that has been made by the petitioner seeking for the extension of the cut-off date for completion of the internship. However, sympathy by itself cannot be a ground for issuing any positive directions, more particularly, when it comes to education," the Court said. .The Court noted that decisions on fixing of cut-off dates are not based on individual claims. Rather, the authorities have to consider a wide range of options before they can take a decision. In this case, the Court also pointed out that the authorities had taken note of the COVID-19 pandemic to extend the cut-off date multiple times..The Judge also took note of the submission by the National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences that there is no scope for further extension of cut-off date. In this backdrop, the Court observed that if the petitioner is granted relief, it may result in chaos if more NEET candidates approach the Court for similar relief.."The petitioner is trying to project his individual grievance and is seeking for the extension of the cut-off date. However, if such a claim is entertained, it will open flood gates and every student who was not able to complete the internship on or before 30.09.2021, will approach this Court seeking for a similar direction and it will only end up in chaos", the Court remarked. .The petitioner before the Court was an MBBS graduate who had sought an extension of the date to complete a one-year Compulsory Rotatory Residential Internship (CRRI). The completion of CRRI was mandatory for a candidate to be eligible to write the NEET PG. The cut-off date to complete this internship to be eligible for NEET PG 2021 was originally fixed at June 30, 2021. However, it was regularly extended on account of the pandemic. It was last extended till September 30, 2021..While so, the petitioner was slated to complete his CRRI only five days later, on October 4, 2021. As such, he sent a representation to the authorities concerned urging that the cut-off date be extended so that he could also write the NEET PG 2021. The petitioner moved the High Court after his representation of July 16 failed to yield any positive response. .The Court ultimately dismissed the petition, observing that,"Though this Court has considered the claim made by the petitioner sympathetically, it will be too difficult for this Court to direct the respondents to extend the cut off date ... In view of the above discussion, this Court is not in a position to grant the relief as sought for by the petitioner and accordingly, this writ petition stands dismissed. No costs. Consequently, the connected miscellaneous petitions are closed.".Advocate R Prem Narayan appeared for the petitioner. Central government standing counsel Srinivasamurthy appeared for the Union of India, standing counsel R Thirunavukarasu appeared for the National Board of Examination in Medical Science and M/s Subharanjani Ananth, standing counsel, appeared for the National Medical Commission..[Read Order]