NBE Moves Supreme Court Seeking Permission To Conduct NEET-PG 2025 Exam On August 3

The National Board of Examination has filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking to postpone the NEET-PG 2025 exam to August 3, 2025 in the 1st shift from 9 am to 12:30 pm.

Earlier, the NBE had decided to postpone the NEET-PG exam, initially scheduled on June 15, following the Supreme Court's direction to hold it in single shift instead of double shifts.

The Court, in its order passed on May 30, had criticised the NBE decision to hold the exam in two shifts.

In its application, NBE said August 3 is the earliest possible available date given by its technology partner TCS to conduct the exam in single shift.

As per TCS, time remaining between May 30 and June 15 was insufficient to hold the exam in a single shift— as now there will be a requirement to provide a greater number of Centres in a greater number of Cities and an extensive hardware supply chain management.

"The current booking of test centres is double the capacity as the examination was planned at the centres in two shifts...1000+ Centres shall need to be booked and engaged which will require considerable time. The infrastructure needed to be engaged to execute a shift of 242679 Candidates with Buffer would require Infrastructure for 2.70 Lakh to be made available across the country which will require considerable amount of time," the application states.

Further, the application window will need to be reopened and candidates will need to be given a fresh opportunity to opt for the test city of their choice in accordance with the Information Bulletin. After the receipt of new test city choices from the candidates, the distribution of candidates at the test centres shall need to be done afresh. This process would also take some time.

After the completion of the aforementioned process, candidates will be informed of their test city at least two weeks prior to the date of the examination and the admit card informing the candidates of their specific centre at least 4 days before the said exam for the purposes of enabling the candidates to make appropriate arrangements for travel, etc. to take the exam. 

There will also be requirement of additional manpower, ranging from Invigilators, Security Staff, Network Admins, etc. "The hiring of the high volume of quality manpower, Training, and preparation of such high number of Manpower and conducting multiple dry runs and mocks with them would require considerable time," the application adds.

NBE also highlighted that NEET PG is a high stake exam and tackling malpractices is a major challenge for which, all law enforcement agencies will be required to join hands.

Overall, NBE has cited reasons like time required for arranging secure examination premises, adequate number of compatible computer systems, three-tier power backup systems, network infrastructure, security software and hardware, trained technical manpower, anti-cheating and surveillance measures, operational readiness of each test centre, mock drills, load tests, system audits