The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has filed a counter affidavit before the Madras High Court Bench here in reply to a few writ petitions filed by a section of students to cancel the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) held on May 7 and urged the court to vacate an interim order passed by it on May 24 restraining the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) from declaring the results of the test till June 12.
The Ministry, however, refrained from answering as to why two different sets of question papers – one common question paper in English and Hindi and another in eight vernacular languages – were administered and left the issue to be defended by the CBSE which, in a separate counter affidavit filed early this week, contended that translating one question paper in all 10 languages would have increased the chances of the paper getting leaked.
Filing the counter affidavit on behalf of the Ministry, its Under Secretary A. Amit Biswas denied the writ petitioners’ claim that the question paper in English was tougher than the one administered to those who wrote the test in vernacular languages and said that the responsibility of conducting the test this year was handed over to CBSE only in accordance with an amendment made last year to the Indian Medical Council Act of 1956.
“CBSE had conducted NEET for the academic year 2013-14. CBSE was also conducting All India Pre Medical Test (AIPMT) for admission in 15% MBBS/BDS seats in government medical/dental colleges throughout the country except for the States of Andhra Pradesh/Telangana and Jammu and Kashmir. Some of the State governments were also using the AIPMT merit list for making admission to medical/dental courses in their States from the academic year 2014-15,” he added.
Further, pointing out that the medium of examination for NEET this year was decided only in consultation with the State governments and union territories, the Centre said that the original plan was to conduct the test only in eight languages – English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu. Kannada and Odia were included subsequently at the request of the respective State governments.
Cases transferred
In the meantime, the Registry of Madras High Court Bench here has transmitted the entire case bundles relating to the writ petitions to the principal seat of the High Court in Chennai in order to list them along with similar cases filed there with a plea to cancel the test held on May 7 and order for a re-test. Court officials here said that the case bundles were sent only on the basis of a written request received from the principal seat in Chennai on Monday.
