Supreme Court postpones PG entrance test of AIIMS and JPMER

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to cancel the AIIMS and JIPMER common entrance test for admission to PG courses but ordered that it may be postponed for a month to allow MBBS doctors on Covid-19 duty to study for these examinations.

A bench, comprising Justices Indira Bannerjee and MR Shah, said that canceling examinations would be a decision that would purely fall under the executive domain and the courts would not take such a call in judicial review. “That is not in our power,” Justice Banerjee said.“How can we say don’t conduct the exams at all?”

The bench though acknowledged the contribution of the doctors in battling the terrible second wave which has claimed huge casualties in recent months and ordered that the examinations be postponed for a month to allow them to properly study for it. From the outset, the bench expressed a reluctance to ban any examination.


Senior advocates Arvind Datar and Sanjay Hegde argued the case for the student doctors. The doctors had cited the PM’s decision to postpone NEET to seek similar relief.The common entrance test to all AIIMS, JIPMER, PGI and NIMHANS was scheduled for June 16 but will stand postponed for a month.AIIMS initially resisted the plea on the ground that some 1000 doctors had already quit the profession during the pandemic and another 1000 would need to be recruited soon to prevent a crisis from engulfing the health sector.