The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the Centre’s Ordinance allowing State MBBS/BDS entrance exams to be held independent of the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) this year.
The court decided not to tinker with the law promulgated by the Centre on May 24 keeping the interest of students in mind. The Vacation Bench of Justices Prafulla C Pant and Dhananjay Y Chandrachud said, “let us not create further confusion on medical entrance test and let there be some certainty for the students. Moreover, this (Ordinance) is there for one year only.”
However the challenge to the Indian Medical Council Amendment Ordinance 2016 was kept open by the court. It asked the petitioner Anand Rai to approach the regular bench that passed the NEET order when the court will reopen after summer break.
For the Centre, it is a huge relief but temporary as of now. Another petition has been filed in Supreme Court on Friday challenging the same Ordinance. The petitioner, though is Sankalp Charitable Trust, whose petition yielded an order from the apex court to introduce NEET throughout the country beginning this year.
The Centre's seriousness to defend the Ordinance was clearly visible as the Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi was present in Court. When Rai's counsel senior advocate Vivek Tankha sought urgent hearing of the petition, Rohatgi asked with equal desperation what was so "earth shattering" about the matter. He said that the Ordinance paved the way for states to hold their independent MBBS/BDS examinations without joining the NEET only for this year. This will not disable students to take the exam in their vernacular language and will end confusion for medical aspirants who already appeared in state common entrance tests (CETs).
But Tankha suggested that the Ordinance has only created confusion after the Court order of May 9 settled it once and for all asking students to take a single entrance test for admission to all private and Government medical/dental colleges. He also urged the Court to consider how an Ordinance can be enacted to nullify implementation of a Court order that was agreed upon by the Centre and all States.
What the Ordinance has done is to introduce a new provision in the Indian Medical Council Act, Section 10D introducing a "Uniform Entrance Examination" distinct from NEET. The provision comes with a one-year exemption for states which conduct their separate CETs and also states like Tamil Nadu which conduct no entrance test but admit students based on their Class 12 results.
The petition filed by Sankalp, drafted by advocate Amit Kumar, probes deeper into the ordinance to show that the Ordinance allows private colleges to escape NEET as in certain states there is an arrangement to fill 50 per cent seats in private colleges through state CET. By this Ordinance, private colleges will not mind transferring their 100 per cent seats under state CET thus making NEET ineffective and allowing private colleges to charge hefty capitation fee.