The National Board of Examination (NBE) on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that it has granted the request made by two pregnant candidates for a change of exam centre for the NEET-PG 2021 examination.

After recording the submission of the NBE, a Bench of Justices UU Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi disposed of the petition filed by the candidates, seeking an option to change centre as their request have been fulfilled.

During the hearing, the counsel appearing for two pregnant candidates, who are in 7th and 8th months of pregnancy, respectively, informed the apex court that the NBE has permitted them for change of centre.

The NEET-PG exam was initially scheduled on April 18 but later postponed to September 11.

Some doctors had approached the top court, saying that thousands of NEET-PG aspirants across the country are facing problems due to the non-availability of options to the candidates to change their centre for the examination.

The petition filed by the doctors have sought directions to the NBE to allow the candidates the “centre change option” and allow the candidates who were posted in COVID-19 duties or were undergoing compulsory training on April 18, 2021, to choose center on the basis of their current location and not the previous posting location.

The plea stated, “The distance between the earlier chosen city for the centre was totally on the basis of the COVID-19 duty posting area and on the basis of other COVID-related reasons. However, almost four months after the postponement of the exam, the petitioners have been overtaken by events and that they humbly place a request for the centre change window as most of them did not make the choice of their centre as their base location.” (ANI)