Supreme Court Orders NBE To Conduct NEET-PG 2025 In Single Shift To Ensure Fairness
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the National Board of Examinations (NBE) to conduct the NEET-PG 2025 examination in a single shift, rejecting the board’s proposal for a two-shift format and emphasizing the need for fairness and transparency in the crucial postgraduate medical entrance test scheduled for June 15.
A three-judge bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sanjay Kumar, and Justice N.K. Anjaria passed the landmark order while hearing petitions challenging NBE’s decision to hold the exam across multiple shifts, citing concerns over varying difficulty levels and compromised evaluation standards.
The Supreme Court observed that conducting the exam in two shifts would result in arbitrariness and fail to ensure a level playing field for medical aspirants across the country.
“Conducting the exam in two shifts results in arbitrariness and fails to ensure a level playing field. The question papers across the two shifts can never be of the same difficulty level,” the court stated in its detailed order.
The bench acknowledged that while the exam may have been conducted in multiple shifts last year due to specific circumstances, the examining body should have made efforts to organize a single-shift examination this year.
The National Board of Examinations had argued that insufficient examination centres made it impossible to conduct the test in a single shift. However, the Supreme Court firmly rejected this justification.
“We are not ready to accept that, in a country of this scale and with the technological advancements available, the examining body could not find sufficient centres to hold the examination in one shift,” the court remarked.
The judges emphasized that with more than two weeks remaining before the examination date, NBE has adequate time to identify secure and credible exam centres to facilitate a single-shift conduct.
The Supreme Court also directed the examining body to maintain full transparency and ensure proper arrangements for the smooth conduct of the examination. The court’s directive comes amid growing concerns among medical aspirants about the fairness of high-stakes exams conducted in multiple shifts.
The controversy stems from issues faced during NEET-PG 2024, when the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) declared results on August 23. Many candidates subsequently raised concerns about discrepancies in their results, alleging improper normalization led to unexpectedly low ranks.
Several aspirants cross-verified their responses with unofficial answer keys released by coaching institutes and identified inconsistencies, further fueling dissatisfaction with the multi-shift examination system.
Two significant petitions were filed in the Supreme Court following the announcement of NEET-PG 2025’s two-shift format.
The first petition, submitted by Dr. Ishika Jain and a group of aspirants, demanded the release of answer keys, individual scorecards, and establishment of a grievance redressal mechanism for NEET-PG 2024. The petitioners argued that the absence of these measures compromises transparency and fairness.
The second petition, filed by the United Doctors’ Front, directly challenged the two-shift format of NEET-PG 2025, raising concerns about variations in question paper difficulty and questioning the lack of transparency in score normalization processes.
Multi-shift exams typically employ a normalization process to account for varying difficulty levels across different question papers. However, this system has been criticized for lacking transparency and potentially disadvantaging certain candidates.
In normalization, scores are adjusted based on the average performance in each shift. Students attempting easier papers may have marks reduced, while those facing tougher papers might receive additional marks. Critics argue this process can be subjective and unfair.
The Supreme Court’s decision is expected to impact thousands of medical graduates seeking admission to postgraduate courses. NEET-PG serves as the gateway for MD/MS and diploma courses in government and private medical colleges across India.
The single-shift mandate aims to ensure all candidates face identical testing conditions, eliminating concerns about varying difficulty levels and controversial normalization processes.
