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The Delhi High Court today issued interim stay on the the single judge order which had  directed the deletion of an incorrect question framed in the Foreign Medical Graduation Examination (FMGE December 2020) and awarded one extra mark to those candidates who were assessed as having answered it incorrectly.

The Division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh directed that stay on the execution and implementation of the single judge order till the next date of hearing.

The order was passed in an appeal made by the National Board of Examination against the order of the single Judge bench of Justice Pratek Jalan  had directed that and  any candidate achieving the passing score of 150 marks, shall be treated as having passed the FMGE (December 2020).

The order was passed on a petition filed by Association of MD Physicians seeking a direction to the National Board of Examination to award full marks for the technically incorrect/ erroneous/ blurred questions that formed a part of the question paper for the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination conducted on December 4, 2020 to all candidates who appeared in the said exam.

The petitioner’s claim of one extra mark was based on the contention that one of the questions in the examination had no correct answer and was therefore a patently erroneous question. In the writ petition, the petitioner had reproduced the disputed question as follows:-

“Question: Sample Registration System gives information about all except: a. Birth rate b. Death rate c. Maternal Mortality rate d. Infant mortality rate”

The NBE stated that the correct answer to the above question is option (c). Parties agree upon the fact that the Sample Registration System mentioned in the aforesaid question, refers to a system which has been established by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India [hereinafter, “RGI”] under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India and is administered by the Vital Statistics (SRS) Division of the RGI.

The results of the FMGE (December 2020) were declared on December 18, 2020. The petitioner addressed a representation dated January 12, 2021 to the NBE and to the Government of India, inter alia raising the contention that the disputed question was technically incorrect, as the SRS in fact, gives information about all the four parameters mentioned viz. Birth Rate [hereinafter, “BR”], Death Rate [hereinafter, “DR”], Maternal Mortality Rate [hereinafter, “MMR”] and Infant Mortality Rate [hereinafter, “IMR”].

However, the NBE issued a notice dated 16.01.2021, clarifying that the result declared by it was final and that it had been declared after “necessary checks including post exam review of the question paper by subject matter experts”.

Thereafter the petitioner approached the High Court.

 

Case Title: National Board of Examination vs Association of MD Physicians