Medical Education Minister Sharanprakash Patil has said that the State government has convened a meeting of senior officials of the Medical Education Department and Law Department to take a final call on the recent order pronounced by the Supreme Court holding that the NEET was the only examination for entering medical courses.
Reacting cautiously to the Supreme Court decision which was a setback to the efforts of the State government to conduct the Common Entrance Test (CET) and introduce NEET from next academic year, Dr. Patil said that the State was studying all the implications of the recent order and a decision would be taken on Wednesday keeping the interests of the students in mind.
Dr. Patil did not rule out the possibility of the State government filing a review petition before a bigger bench. The State government was hopeful of getting the court’s nod to at least conduct the CET to admit students to government medical colleges this year. But the Monday order of the Supreme court has put paid to that hope also.
“We will consult the Advocate-General on the possibility of filing a review petition… the State government does not want to keep the students in tenterhooks and would take a final decision on admission to medical courses on Wednesday in consultation with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the Advocate-General.”
There is no clarity on how many seats the State government would get as its quota to admit the students through NEET. Although the State government, in its plea, had brought to the court’s notice the agreement with private colleges to share the seats for admitting students under the government quota in private medical colleges, there has been not a single word about the fate of the consensual agreement with the private colleges in the recent order of the Supreme Court.
