Several states oppose NEET, seek exemption

Even as several states on Tuesday strongly opposed the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), the Supreme Court indicated that the states must fall in line with NEET as it will save the students the trouble of taking multiple common entrance tests and save their parents large sums of money on fees for taking these tests.

A three-judge bench of Justices Anil R. Dave, Shiva Kirti Singh and A.K. Goel heard arguments on a batch of petitions from various states and private medical college associations seeking stay of the NEET order insofar as its applicability to them is concerned for the academic year 2016-17.

At the outset senior counsel Vikas Singh, appearing for Medical Council of India, and the counsel for the Dental Council objected to the states filing applications seeking stay of the NEET order and exemption for this year. They said as NEET-2 will be held on July 24, all those students who did not apply for NEET-1 can apply and take this examination. As results will be declared only on August 17, hearing could be held in July and completed before the declaration of results.

Solicitor-general Ranjit Kumar and additional solicitor-general Pinky Anand for CBSE sought time to respond to various applications filed and the court asked for their response by Thursday.

Justice Dave told senior counsel K.K. Venugopal, appearing for Karnataka Private Medical Colleges Association, and other senior advocates that initially there will be some teething problem in conducting and accepting NEET by the states, but ultimately there won’t be any problem and NEET will be in the interest of the students and states will have to fall in line. Justice Dave pointed out that at present students will have to appear in at least 100 written tests and their parents spend Rs 1,000 for each of these tests.

The present hearing is a sequel to the April 11 judgment of the Constitution Bench recalling the July 2013 order quashing the NEET notification. Since the December 2010 notification on NEET stood restored, the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala and the Union Territory of Puducherry and Karnataka Private Medical Colleges Association filed applications seeking stay of the operation of the NEET order passed on April 28 (allowing NEET in two phases) and to exempt them from this test for this year.

Mr Venugopal submitted that Karnataka had passed legislation for conducting of common entrance tests by the state and by the association of medical colleges. This year the exam is to be held by the state on May 4 and by the association on May 8 in over 150 centres for over 1.20 lakh examinees. The association had spent '8 crore for the exam being conducted by Tata Consultancy Services.