SC May Decide Fate of Medical Entrance Exams Other Than NEET Today

It is a crucial day for lakhs of medical aspirants as the Supreme Court is slated to decide on the fate of medical college entrance exams other than NEET on Tuesday.

The Centre had filed a plea in the apex court seeking to allow state governments to hold separate entrance exams for MBBS and BDS courses.

The Supreme Court has also formed a committee of retired Chief Justice RM Lodha, Dr SK Sareen and Former CAG Vinod Rai to oversee the functioning of the Medical Council of India (MCI) regarding the entrance tests.

The fate of COMED-K, the entrance test for medical, engineering and dental courses in Karnataka, is also slated to be decided by the top Court. The examination is scheduled to be conducted on May 8.

The NEET was conducted on May 1, after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of having a single national entrance test for MBBS and BDS courses.

The petition by some state and private medical colleges was filed just a day after the examination was held across the country. The Supreme Court had on Saturday refused to accord an urgent hearing of a plea seeking modification of its April 28 order on NEET.

"Nothing will happen in the meantime. Matter had been heard by the bench and it is over for now. Please allow the examination to be conducted," the bench comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur had said.

The apex court had on April 28 cleared the decks for the holding of NEET 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 apex court had pronounced the order after rejecting opposition for holding NEET by states, including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Association of Karnataka Medical Colleges, besides minority institutions like CMC, Vellore.