Plea filed in SC for postponing AYUSH PG exam

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court for a direction to the National Testing Agency to cancel all India AYUSH Post Graduate Entrance Test-2020, scheduled on August 29, 2020, due alarming spurt of Covid-19 cases in the country.

As many as 17 BAMS and BHMS doctors led by Priyanka filed the PIL through their advocate Alakh Alok Shrivastava. They said they are tirelessly working as frontline doctors and 'Corona Warriors' in various hospitals across India.

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The notification issued on August 10 to conduct AIAPGET-2020 was utterly arbitrary, whimsical and violative of the right to life and health, as the Covid-19 cases have crossed the figure of 25 Lakh cases in India and the situation has worsened in a critical manner.

The petitioners pointed out the National Testing Agency had earlier postponed the AIAPGET-2020 on many occasions, solely due to spurt of Covid-19 pandemic. Last time when they did postpone the exam, scheduled on July 15, 2020, there were about 9.36 lakh cases in the country.

They also pointed out that the decision was also contrary to Unlock-3 guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on July 29, which said that all schools, colleges, institutions would remain closed till August 31.

The petitioners further several tests like Karnataka PGCET, CSIR UGC NET, Maharashtra MHTCET, ICAI, ICSI, AIBE, AILET, UPSC Preliminary Examinations have been postponed solely due to alarming Covid-19 crisis.

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After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement that Covid-19 vaccine is likely to be developed by India very soon, the authorities should have waited for a few more days to conduct the examination, so as to save the lives of the petitioners herein and other similarly situated doctors, they said. The flood situation in various parts of the country was also cited by them as reasons to defer the exams.