A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud expressed its satisfaction with the government’s change of mind, and disposed of the case.
Ms. Bhati noted that the decision to revert to the old mode was done in consultation with expert bodies such as the National Board of Examinations and the National Medical Commission, taking into consideration students’ interests.
The change of tune comes a day after the court criticised the revision of the exam pattern at the eleventh hour, saying it might have been done to favour private medical colleges.
The new pattern showed questions entirely from the field of general medicine and not from the specialities for which the students wanted admission. General medicine, the court said, was the largest pool from which students could be found to fill the vacant seats in private institutions for super speciality courses.
‘A business’
On Tuesday, the court said the tragedy of medical education was that it had become a business in this country. “The impression we get is medical education has become a business, and medical regulation has also become a business. That is the tragedy of medical education in this country,” Justice Chandrachud remarked.
The court had observed that questions under the revised pattern were wholly from general medicine, which was a feeder category. The earlier pattern had 60% of the questions coming from the student’s chosen field of speciality and the rest from the feeder category.
“For 12 super specialties, 100% questions are from general medicine. The entire examination is going to be only be on general medicine. The logic seems to be, general medicine is the largest pool, and tap them to fill the seats. That seems to be idea,” the Bench had noted.
In an earlier hearing, the court had lashed out at the government, saying “young doctors cannot be left at the mercy of insensitive bureaucrats and cannot be treated like football”. It had stated, “The interests of students is far higher than those of the institutions”.
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