The Supreme Court has postponed NEET PG 2025, directing NBEMS to conduct the exam in one shift for transparency. New exam dates and admit card releases will be announced soon.
New Delhi: Today, on June 02, the NEET PG 2025 examination has been officially postponed after the Supreme Court of India directed the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to conduct the exam in a single shift.
The apex court gave this order while hearing a petition filed by Aditi and Others against NBEMS, where the main concern was the unfairness caused by holding the exam in two separate shifts.
Originally, the NEET PG exam was scheduled to take place on 15 June 2025, and NBEMS had planned to conduct it in two shifts.
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However, the Supreme Court did not agree with this approach.
The Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, PV Sanjay Kumar, and NV Anjaria said the exam must be conducted in one single shift to ensure equal opportunity for all candidates.
The court rejected NBEMS’s argument that holding the exam in one shift would cause safety and security problems because of a shortage of exam centres.
The judges questioned why NEET PG could not be held in one shift when NEET UG, which has many more candidates, was successfully conducted in a single shift.
The court said,
“NEET UG was also held in a single shift, then why not PG?”
The Supreme Court showed strong support for the students who were worried about the two-shift pattern and agreed with their demand for fairness.
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The Bench stated,
“Even if only one or two students have filed a petition, if their argument is correct then the court will have to intervene. Last year, the exam was held in two shifts under special circumstances, but this cannot become a general rule now.”
The Court was clear in its opinion that holding the exam in two shifts was not fair.
It said,
“Having the exam in two shifts leads to arbitrariness. Conducting the exam in two shifts creates inequality and it cannot give equal opportunity to all the candidates. Processes like normalization should be applied only in special cases, not every year. Apart from this, the court said that there is no shortage of technology and resources in India, enough centers can be made for the exam in one shift across the country.”
As per the Court’s direction, NBEMS is now working on identifying and arranging more examination centres and improving infrastructure so that all candidates can appear for the NEET PG 2025 exam at the same time.
Due to this reorganisation, the exam will not be held on 15 June as earlier planned. A new date will be announced soon.
The court also said that NBEMS has enough time to make the necessary changes, stating,
“There is more than two weeks left for the exam, so NBE has enough time to identify new centers and conduct the exam in one shift. The court has ordered NBE to maintain transparency and ensure safe centers. Apart from this, it also said that all the necessary arrangements should be completed as soon as possible.”
Earlier, NBEMS had tried to justify the two-shift plan by saying that normalization methods were used to ensure fairness. However, the court noted that even with such methods, there were serious concerns about fairness in the results.
Many top rankers last year had taken the exam in the first shift, which led to complaints and allegations of biased results. NBEMS admitted this by saying,
“Statistical methods were used to equalize the marks, but despite this, the results last year seemed biased. Most of the top rankers had given the exam in the first shift, which led to allegations of one-sided results.”
The Supreme Court strongly disagreed with this approach and ruled in favour of the students, saying that transparency and fairness must come first.
Students who are preparing for NEET PG have been very vocal about their concerns.
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They believe that even a small difference in the difficulty level between question papers in different shifts could affect their chances of getting a good rank.
One of the students, Rashi Yadav, shared her concern and said,
“In this difficult exam, even one mark can push the ranking down by thousands of places. If someone gets an easy paper, our dream may remain unfulfilled. There is no way that can equalize the difficulty of the papers of both the shifts. We are not asking for any special rights, we only want a fair exam, which is possible only in one shift.”
Background of the Case
The Supreme Court of India directed the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBE) to conduct the NEET PG 2025 examination in a single shift.
A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, PV Sanjay Kumar, and NV Anjaria passed the order, rejecting the NBE’s argument that conducting the exam in a single shift would create safety and security concerns due to a lack of examination centres.
The Court questioned the NBE’s logic, pointing out that the undergraduate exam (NEET UG) was successfully conducted in a single shift.
The Bench clearly stated “NEET UG was also held in a single shift, then why not PG?”
During the hearing, the Court strongly supported the students’ concerns and said:
“Even if only one or two students have filed a petition, if their argument is correct then the court will have to intervene. Last year, the exam was held in two shifts under special circumstances, but this cannot become a general rule now.”
The Court emphasized that holding NEET PG in two different shifts creates unfairness.
“Having the exam in two shifts leads to arbitrariness. Conducting the exam in two shifts creates inequality and it cannot give equal opportunity to all the candidates. Processes like normalization should be applied only in special cases, not every year. Apart from this, the court said that there is no shortage of technology and resources in India, enough centers can be made for the exam in one shift across the country.”
The Supreme Court Bench also noted that the exam is still more than two weeks away, giving enough time for necessary changes.
“There is more than two weeks left for the exam, so NBE has enough time to identify new centers and conduct the exam in one shift. The court has ordered NBE to maintain transparency and ensure safe centers. Apart from this, it also said that all the necessary arrangements should be completed as soon as possible.”
Earlier, NBE had defended the two-shift plan by saying they used statistical methods like normalization to ensure fairness in marks. But even with that, issues were raised.
The NBE admitted “Statistical methods were used to equalize the marks, but despite this, the results last year seemed biased. Most of the top rankers had given the exam in the first shift, which led to allegations of one-sided results.”
What did the official notice say?
The official notice reads,
”Honable Supreme Court of India in W.P. No. 456/2025 (Aditi & Ors Versus National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences & Ors) has ordered that ”we accordingly, direct the respondents to make necessary arrangements for holding the NEET PG 2025, examination in one shift, duly ensuring that complete transparency is maintained and secure centres are identified and commissioned.”
it added,
”Accordingly, NBEMS will conduct NEET PG 2025 in a single shift. NEET PG 2025, scheduled to be conducted on June 15, has been postponed to arrange more test centres and required infrastructure. The revised date for the conduct of NEET PG shall be notified shortly”
Read Notification:
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