Nearly 4,000 Indian students in the Gulf countries, most of whom were from Kerala, moved to the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking examination centers abroad to appear in the National Eligibility Cum Entry Test (Undergraduate) scheduled for 26 July 2020 or to postpone it until the pandemic situation has normalized.

One of the parents, through the advocates Pallavi Pratap and Haris Beeran, said that most of the students had registered with the Indian embassies in Qatar, Oman, UAE and Saudi Arabia to travel to India on Vande Bharat mission flights and to attend the MBBS and BDS courses in medical colleges.

However, they could not be accommodated on flights as a priority was given to other categories of passengers stuck abroad.

In their appeal against the Kerala High Court decision refusing to interfere with NEET 2020 to be carried out by the National Testing Agency, petitioner Abdul Azeez said that the NTA had the capacity and willingness to open examination centers in the Gulf countries, as they had done for the Joint Entry Examination (JEE) Mains for admission to IITs and NITs.

However, the NTA stated that it would open examination centers abroad only if the Indian Medical Council (MCI) approved the proposal.

"The MCI informed the Commission in its communication of 21 May 2020 that an online test for NEET is not possible.

In these exceptional circumstances, the MCI and the Union Government need to be flexible in order to make it easier for these students to sit on the NEET, "the petitioner said.