SC issues notice to MCI, DCI, CBSE, state gov on feedback on NEET

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the centre and others based on a plea received, challenging the May 24 Ordinance allowing states to hold their own entrance tests for medical courses for 2016-17,

The bench comprising of Justices Kurian Joseph and Shiva Kirti Singh have called for a feedback from the Medical Council of India (MCI), the Dental Council of India, the Karnataka Government and the CBSE on the petition filed by A Archana, Safeena Tabassum Mahammed, Nabeela Hasan and others. All of them are students from Bangalore.

The court has refused to pass an interim direction for the CBSE to publish separate merit lists for CBSE entrants and their counterparts appearing in the state board examination for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET ). An exam held in two phases for undergraduate medical and dental courses in colleges all over the country.

The petitioners contention in this case is that the ordinance issued by the centre denied them the opportunity to take NEET to qualify for the state government colleges.

They argued saying the ordinance was “bad in law, discriminatory & punitive; violating the Certificate of Essentiality” by mandating admission purely on the basis of merit. To them the ordinance defied the very basis of pre-condition for establishment of medical colleges in Karnataka.

The students submitted that since the exam was in English it led to unfair and unexpected disadvantage to the students from the state board, They clarified that they were not challenging the validity of NEET but merely asking for an exemption from it for private medical colleges for the year 2016-17.