Allow states to hold separate medical entrance test: Centre to SC

The apex court passed an order yesterday allowing a two-phased single common entrance test for MBBS, BDS and PG courses through NEET

The Centre today moved the Supreme Court seeking modification of yesterday's order to allow state governments and private colleges to hold separate entrance examinations for MBBS and BDS courses for the academic year 2016-17.

The plea in this regard was mentioned by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi before a bench of Justices A R Dave and A K Goel.

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The AG suggested that the order passed by the apex court yesterday had allowed holding of a two-phased single common entrance test for MBBS, BDS and PG courses through National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) on May 1 and July 24 but there appear to be some genuine difficulties and there is a need for some change in the order.

He suggested that the first phase of NEET scheduled for May 1 be scrapped and all the students be allowed to take the exams on July 24.

Rohatgi said there was a need to modify yesterday's order as there was a lot of confusion arising out of it.

The bench agreed to give an urgent hearing to the matter which is likely to be taken up later in the day by the same bench which had passed the order yesterday.

The apex court had yesterday cleared the decks for the holding of NEET, a single common entrance test for admission to MBBS and BDS courses, in two phases for the academic year 2016-17 in which around 6.5 lakh candidates are likely to appear.

It had approved the schedule put before it by the Centre, CBSE and the Medical Council of India (MCI) for treating All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) fixed for May 1 as NEET-1.

It had said those who had not applied for AIPMT will be given the opportunity to appear in NEET-II on July 24 and the combined result would be declared on August 17 so that the admission process can be completed by September 30.

The order implied that all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would be covered under NEET and those examinations which have already taken place or slated to be conducted separately stand scrapped.

A bench comprising Justices A R Dave, Shiva Kirti Singh and A K Goel had pronounced the order yesterday after rejecting the opposition for holding NEET by the states, including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Association of Karnataka Medical Colleges, besides minority institutions like CMC, Vellore which had contended that NEET cannot be imposed on them.

The apex court order had also revived the government's Decemeber 21, 2010 notification for holding a single common entrance test through NEET with a clarification that any challenge on the issue would directly come before it and no high court can interfere in it.

The court was of the view that since it has recalled its April 11 order, there was no hindrance in holding the single entrance test.

On April 11, the apex court had recalled its judgement scrapping a single common entrance test for admission to MBBS, BDS and PG courses in all medical colleges, delivered by then Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir on the day of his retirement.

The petition on which the court passed the order yesterday was filed by NGO Sankalp Charitable Trust.

In its petition, the NGO had said that the Centre, MCI and CBSE were dilly-dallying in implementing the court's order on implementing the National Eligibility Entrance Test.

It had said that in view of April 11 judgement decks were cleared for holding of Common Entrance Examination and there is no impediment in having the test for admission to Medical Colleges for current academic year 2016-17.