Delhi High Court ruled that it would not quash National Board of Examination's decision of extending the completion of the training period of the final year students of Diplomate of National Board (DNB). The request has arrived in a petition looking for the quashing of Public Notice dated 04/04/20, by the NBE, which has expanded the period for finishing the training of final year DNB understudies by a time of about a month and a half because of the continuous COVID19 pandemic. While establishing that the Advisories of Medical Council of India don't bind the NBE, Single Bench of Justice Asha Menon noticed that the principle of promissory estoppel doesn't have any application on matters of education. The Petitioners contended that the NBE had no power vested in it to alter the training time frame, which has been in an unfair way as it applies just to the last year students and not to the first and second year students.
ASG Maninder Acharya, appearing for Union of India, contended that it was justified to extend the training period, in public interest, as owing to the nuisances caused by the COVID19 pandemic, fresh addition of DNB candidates was not possible as the entrance exam cannot be held and would have created a vacuum, having adverse effects on the public health system.
The court discarded the Petitioners' contention regarding the claim of the public notice being full of ambiguities by noting that no specific mention of the term "special circumstances" was required as it was well implied. Moreover, the Court also held that:
'the first year, second year and third year students are not 'equals' as they are at different levels of skills. Moreover, as rightly pointed out by the learned ASG, it is the movement of the final year students from the hospitals that would create a gap in health services. Further, as the first and second year students are still available at the hospitals they shall have the time to continue their training in specialized fields, once the acute and emergent demand on health services eases. That may not be the position if the third year students are allowed to leave with whatever training they have received. Therefore, the Public Notice dated 04.04.2020 is not discriminatory and is based on intelligible differentia and bears nexus to the objects sought to be achieved.'