Mumbai, Jul 9 (PTI) The Maharashtra government on Thursday told the Bombay High Court that it was in the process of taking a decision on conducting final year exams for the post-graduate MD and MS courses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A division bench of Justices S J Kathawalla and V G Bisht was hearing a petition filed by Dr Nishant Gabbur, seeking a direction to the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) to declare the dates and conduct final year exams for post-graduate MD/MS course.

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As per the plea, the exams were postponed twice due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Assistant government pleader Jyoti Chavan sought time to respond to the petition and said the government was presently holding meetings on the issue.

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Chavan said the process involved is preparation of schedule and taking every safety measure as it concerns resident doctors and examiners who are already in COVID-19 duty.

The court posted the petition for further hearing on July 14.

Gabbur, who is studying MS (general surgery) at the Seth G S Medical College at Parel in central Mumbai, had stood second in the All India ranking in the general category for neurosurgery in the entrance test for DM/M Ch courses conducted by the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh.

As per his petition, on June 30 PGIMER issued Gabbur a provisional admission letter and granted him time till July 6 to join.

An eligibility criterion mandated that a candidate must have passed MD/MS or its equivalent recognised by the Medical Council of India.

However, since the MUHS has failed to conduct its final exams till date, there is a possibility that PGIMER may not admit the petitioner for the DM/M Ch fellowship in the absence of MD/MS certificate of passing, the petition said seeking urgent hearing.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)