Supreme Court Dismisses NEET, JEE 2020 Postponement Plea

NEET and JEE Main 2020: On Monday the Supreme Court discarded the plea seeking the postponement of NEET and JEE examinations 2020. A three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said that "life has to go on" despite COVID-19 and the court cannot put the career of students in danger by interfering with the National Testing Agency decision.

"Career of students cannot be put in peril. We find no merit in the petition. The petition is dismissed", the bench also included justices BR Gavai, and Krishna Murari said.

"You (lawyers) have demanded the opening of physical courts. But you want exams to be postponed. Postponement of exams is a loss for the country," the bench said.

Petitioner's lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava said that vaccine for COVID-19 is "on its way" and he is not seeking an indefinite postponement of the exams. But the bench didn't find any value in the case.

The petitioner inhibited another petition praying that NEET and JEE should be conducted as per schedule after the court rejected the plea seeking a postponement.

Earlier this month, a plea was filed before the Supreme Court by 11 students belonging to 11 states seeking the postponement of JEE and NEET 2020 exams till the COVID-19 pandemic normalizes. The plea wanted cancelling of National Testing Agency's (NTA) July 3 notice, to hold of JEE and NEET entrance examination in September.

As per the public notices by the NTA, JEE (Main) 2020 exam is scheduled to be held from September 1-6, while the NEET-UG 2020 exam is scheduled for September 13.

Conducting JEE and NEET at this stage will put lives of lakhs of young students in danger, the petition filed by 11 JEE/NEET aspirants said. "The best recourse at this stage can be to wait for some more time, let Covid-19 Crisis subside and then only conduct these Exams, in order to save the lives of the students and their parents," the petition said.

Earlier, JEE mains was scheduled to be conducted in April and May respectively, which was later postponed due to the Covid-19 disease outbreak.