NEET PG 2025 To Be Held In Single Shift: Supreme Court Directs NBE

On Monday, May 30, 2025, the Supreme Court directed the National Board of Examinations (NBE) not to conduct the NEET-PG 2025 exam in two different shifts. The court said that holding the exam in two shifts will result in unfairness.

The Supreme Court has ordered NBE to hold the NEET-PG 2025 exam in just one shift to make sure the process is fair and transparent. The Court noted that since the exam is on June 15, there is still enough time to make the required arrangements.

The Court said in its order that, “Holding examination in two shifts creates arbitrariness and also does not keep all the candidates at the same level. Any two question papers can never be said to be of an identical level of difficulty or ease. There has to be a variation.”

However, NBE contended that there are not enough centres to schedule the exam in one shift, to which the court noted that “the exam is to be held all over the country, not just one city. We are not ready to accept that in entire country and considering the technological advancements in this country, the examining body could not find enough centres to hold the examination and one shift.”

A bench of Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sanjay Kumar, and Justice NV Anjaria gave the order while hearing several petitions against the NBE’s plan to hold NEET-PG 2025 in two shifts.

The Court said that normalisation should not be applied regularly every year, but in special situations.

The order comes after a plea was filed against NBE holding NEET PG in two different shifts. The petitioners contended that holding exams in two different shifts is unfair and does not keep all candidates at the same level. The question papers from two different shifts can have differences in their difficulty levels.

The petition contends that holding the exam in two shifts violates the rights of candidates mentioned under Article 14 of the Constitution. It says the moderation and normalisation are not clear or transparent, making it hard to ensure that all candidates are treated fairly.

It also claims that Article 21 is being violated because the exam process is not fair. The plea also cited NEET-PG 2024, which was held in two shifts, where the second shift was easier. This has caused unequal opportunity among the candidates.

On asking why the exam was held in dual shifts last year, the Senior Advocate Maninder Acharya, for NBE, said that there are limited centres. “The exam is held online. In 2024 NEET UG had to be cancelled due to malpractice. For online exam there are limited centres. All important examinations in which large number of candidates appear are held like this. Even for this exam we have very limited centres. Infrastructure for Wi-Fi, good computers safety security etc. All possible problems have been considered and then this solution has been given“, Acharya said. She further said that if the Court Intereferes, the exam that is currently scheduled for June 15, 2025, could be postponed, resulting in a delayed admission process.

The NBE counsel stated that even if there is a little difference between the difficulty level of the exam held in two shifts, the marks are normalised. Acharya stated that it is not possible to arrange 900 centres to conduct the exam in a single shift.

However, the bench was not satisfied with these arguments and said that the agency has enough time to make necessary arrangements. The bench also said that NBE can request to extend the exam date if they are not able to make the arrangements before June 15.