By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has issued a notice on a plea seeking directions to restrain the National Board of examinations from excluding or deleting MD Radiation Oncology / MD Radiotherapy from the eligible feeder specialties for the super specialty course of DM Medical Oncology in the NEET SS – 2022. The plea has also challenged the changed examination pattern which would now consist of 150 questions from the general/basic component of the primary feeder broad specialty subject and from all sub-specialty/systems/component of that primary feeder broad specialty subject.“Change skews the level playing field for the candidates belonging to different broad specialties… as it confers undue advantage upon some, and lowers the chances of others to excel in the examination,” the plea filed through advocate Javedur Rahman reads.Contending that the erstwhile pattern had a paper with 40% mixed questions from all the broad specialties and 60% questions from Critical Care (i.e., the super-specialty subject) which had ensured a level playing field, the petitioners have contended that the new pattern was forcing all the candidates from the broad specialties to write a single paper which will have 100% questions from General Medicine.”There will be no questions from broad specialties of the other four post-graduate branches. The pattern is not just a waste of time and effort for all those who have prepared for Critical Care but also grossly biased against a few broad specialties, particularly in favour of MD Medicine in so far as the choice of options is far greater vis-a-vis the choices available to either MD Radiation Oncology or MD Anaesthesia,” the plea said.”The new examination scheme is making some candidates write a paper which has no questions from their postgraduate broad speciality and they will have to compete with candidates who have 100% questions from their postgraduate syllabus/ broad speciality,” the petition added.
