The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that NEET shall remain the only uniform entrance test for medical admissions in the country.
It further held that minority institutions, deemed universities and all other private colleges must also abide with these regulations and that they cannot claim violation of their rights to admit students since NEET is in the larger national interest.
“The regulatory measures by prescribing NEET is to bring the education within the realm of charity which character it has lost. It intends to weed out evils from the system and various malpractices, which decayed the system.
The regulatory measures in no way interfere with the rights to administer the institution by the religious or linguistic minorities,” said a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.
The top court was adjudicating upon a clutch of challenges to various notifications and rules made in the Medical Council of India Act and Dentist Act in order to prescribe National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) as the all-India exam for admissions to graduate and post-graduate medical courses.
The chief contention of the petitioners was that NEET took away the right of the religious and linguistic minority institutions to administer their business, including the right to admit students from the minority community in terms of their own standards.
But the Supreme Court bench, which also included Justices Vineet Saran and MR Shah, did not find favour with this objection.
Discussion about this post