New
Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to direct the medical universities to
cancel or postpone the final year postgraduate exams on the ground that the
examinee-doctors have been engaged in COVID-19 duty. A vacation bench of
Justices Indira Banerjee and M R Shah said it cannot pass any general order to
all the universities to not conduct or postpone the final year postgraduate
medical examination.
The
top court noted that the National Medical Council (NMC) has already issued an
advisory in April asking the universities in the country to take the COVID
situation into consideration while announcing the dates for the final year
examination.
“We
have interfered where it was possible like postponing by one month the INI CET
examination conducted by AIIMS, New Delhi, where we have found that there was
no justification in fixing the date for the examination without giving
appropriate time to students to prepare,” the bench said.
It
rejected the submission of senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for 29
doctors, who have filed the writ petition that NMC be directed to issue
directions to all the universities to give reasonable time to students for
preparing for the examination.
“We
don’t know what could be the reasonable time for preparing for the examination.
How can the court decide the reasonable time? Everyone may have their
reasonable time. Let the university decide on the basis of the advisory of NMC
as per the pandemic situation prevailing in their area,” the bench said.
The
top court said, “In a vast country like India, the pandemic situation cannot be
the same. In April-May, the situation in Delhi was very bad but now it is
hardly 200 cases per day. In Karnataka, however, the situation is not that good
even now. Therefore, we cannot pass any general order without hearing the
universities”.
Advocate
Gaurav Sharma, appearing for NMC said that not all doctors were engaged in
COVID duty and the council had issued an advisory in April to all the
universities to hold the examination after taking into consideration the COVID
situation in their respective areas.
Advocate
Hegde said that since the doctors were engaged in COVID duty, they were not
able to prepare for the examination, which will enable them to become senior
resident doctors. At the outset, the bench clarified that it is not allowing
the doctors to be promoted without appearing for the examination.
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