New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to direct the Medical Universities to call off or postpone the final year Post Graduate exams in a plea filed by a group of 29 doctors, Post-Graduate Medical residents.

A vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and M.R. Shah said examination dates are to be announced by various Varsities and it cannot pass any general order to all the Universities not to conduct or postpone the final year Post-Graduate medical examination.

The Apex Court noted that the National Medical Council (NMC) had advised the Universities in the country to take the Covid situation into consideration while announcing the dates for 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 was quoted as saying.

Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for 29 doctors, sought that NMC be directed to issue directions to all the Varsities to give reasonable time to students for preparing for the examination as the examinee-doctors have been engaged in Covid duty.

On Hegde’s plea, the bench said, ‘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.’