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Shikhar & Anr. vs National Board of Examination & Ors.

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2022 INSC 390Decided 5 Apr 2022
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 208 of 2022
Dr Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud · Surya Kant · Bela M. Trivedi

Background

Doctors aspiring to appear for NEET-PG 2022 challenged the deadline by which their compulsory internship had to be completed to be eligible. The National Board of Examination had originally set 31 May 2022 as the cut-off, later extending it to 31 July 2022 after representations following an earlier Supreme Court order. The petitioners argued that even the extended date excluded students from states like Kerala, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, whose internships started late because they had been deployed on Covid-19 duty, and asked either for a further extension or for Covid-duty time to count toward the internship.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, holding that fixing academic/examination eligibility criteria and cut-off dates falls within the domain of expert regulatory and executive bodies, and courts must be circumspect about interfering in such policy matters absent proof that a cut-off is arbitrary, capricious or without any rational basis. The Additional Solicitor General had shown that any further extension would disrupt the entire examination and academic calendar (counselling, class commencement, and the next exam cycle), prejudicing other students who had already met the 31 July deadline. Relying on precedents (IIT Kharagpur v. Soutrik Sarangi, Rachna v. Union of India, State of Bihar v. Ramjee Prasad, Hirandra Kumar), the Court held that some exclusion is an inevitable and non-arbitrary consequence of any cut-off, and the alternative request to count Covid-duty period toward the internship would amount to the Court micromanaging the medical curriculum.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not ordinarily second-guess an academic or examination cut-off date fixed by expert regulatory bodies merely because it causes hardship to some individuals: a cut-off is only struck down if shown to be irrational, arbitrary or wholly unreasonable, not simply because it excludes some candidates.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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