he move by the Medical Council of India (MCI) to reintroduce the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to degree and postgraduate medical courses has once again focussed attention on the viability of such a national test and its impact on students from different educational backgrounds.
The MCI has reportedly written to the Union government asking for changes in the Act to enable it to conduct a nationwide eligibility test.
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The most obvious benefit of NEET would be that medical course aspirants need write only one entrance examination, the score of which would be valid for admissions to MBBS and MD courses across the country.
But then since the syllabus for a NEET is most likely to be based on the NCERT syllabus, candidates who study in State syllabi may be put at a disadvantage. In Kerala, for instance, the current engineering/medical entrance examinations are based on the State’s Plus Two syllabus. A NEET score notwithstanding, each State may have to draw up its own rank list as the eligibility criteria are different for different States.
The toughest hurdle that a potential NEET may have to overcome is a legal one. On July 18, 2013, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court had declared the NEET unconstitutional. The Bench headed by the then Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said in its 2-1 majority verdict that the test had the effect of depriving States, State-run universities, and all medical colleges and institutions of their right to admit students to MBBS, BDS, and postgraduate courses as per their own procedures, beliefs and dispensations, “which has been found by this court in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation case to be an integral facet of the right to administer.”
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The Chief Justice had said in the main judgement: “In our view, the role attributed to, and the powers conferred on, the MCI and the DCI under… the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 and the Dentists Act, 1948 do not contemplate anything different, and are restricted to laying down standards which are uniformly applicable to all medical colleges and institutions … to ensure the excellence of medical education …” ( The Hindu dated July 19, 2013)
The Bench said further: “The role assigned to the MCI under Sections 10A and 19A (1) of the 1956 Act vindicates such a conclusion. As an offshoot …, we … have no hesitation in holding that the Medical Council of India is not empowered … to actually conduct the NEET.”
The Bench had pointed out that admissions were part of the right of an educational institution to administer, and these could not be regulated except for laying down standards for maintaining excellence in education.
100 petitions
More than 100 petitions were filed in various High Courts in the country by various institutions — including Christian Medical College, Vellore, the States of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, several associations of private medical colleges, DD Medical College and DD Hospital, Tamil Nadu — asking that the NEET not be made applicable to them.