HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Friday directed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the National Medical Commission (NMC), Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) and the State Health Department to explain their stand on the conduct of second supplementary exams for MBBS first-year students by Monday.
A student named K Geethika and 30 others filed a petition challenging the examination pattern set by KNRUHS and seeking second supplementary examinations. The petitioners’ counsel urged the court to direct the university to hold special supplementary exams for this year instead of retaining them in the first year for one more year. They had already lost one year due to the pandemic, the counsel argued.
Even online classes did not go well, but the university authorities have conducted the exams contrary to the manner that was prescribed in the Regulations on Graduate Medical Education (Amendment) Act, 2019, he stated.
While going through the contentions raised by the students, Justice B Vijayasen Reddy asked the KNRUHS authorities to explain their stand. Additional Advocate General (AAG) J Ramachandra Rao, appearing for the varsity, said that the NMC allowed the universities some degree of autonomy in fixing the pattern of exams. They can include or exclude the Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs), he said.
“When the entire world was crippled by the pandemic and exemptions were granted in several areas, there is no point why the students should be left out, particularly when they were not asking them to be promoted, they are seeking only the conduct of the examination,” Justice Reddy said.