President seeks ordinance clarification, calls JP Nadda

President Pranab Mukherjee seems to have raised some “doubts” over the Centre’s decision to bring in an ordinance to defer implementation of the Supreme Court-ordered National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) as the “sole” entrance test for admissions to state medical colleges. Union health minister J.P. Nadda has been summoned by the President for clarifications on the matter.

While the Union Cabinet cleared the ordinance Friday, sources said the President did not seem convinced and has asked Mr Nadda to explain the rationale behind keeping state boards out of the ambit of uniform medical entrance test. The health minister is likely to meet the President late Sunday or Monday.

Mr Nadda, who was due to leave on Saturday morning for Geneva to attend and hand over the presidency of the World Health Assembly, had to cancel his trip after the President did not give his assent for the promulgation of the ordinance that proposed an amendment to the Indian Medical Council Act 1956 and Dentists Act 1948 on Friday. Sources said the President had also sought the opinion of in-house experts on the ordinance, which underlines the gravity of the situation. The President is due to leave for China on Tuesday. If the President does not give his assent, the matter will go back to the Union Cabinet.

An NGO, Sankalp Charitable Trust, has meanwhile also challenged the ordinance in the Supreme Court. The matter is expected to come up on Monday.

Earlier, on Friday, the government cleared the ordinance for an uniform entrance exam for all undergraduate and postgraduate medical admissions, with the proviso that for 2016-2017, in relation to UG admissions, the state governments can fill up their own seats in state colleges and private colleges as per their existing procedure.

While the ordinance does not give relief to the private medical colleges that have been reined in through NEET, state governments have been given an option to opt for it from this year itself. Reliable sources clarified that the uniform entrance examination will be applicable to all private medical colleges in relation to their own and management quota seats. NEET will also apply to the all-India quota seats filled by the Central government and such state governments in respect to state government seats who have already opted or want to be part of NEET for UG admissions in 2016-2017. Seven states have already been part of AIPMT.

The ordinance also clearly stated that in future a uniform entrance test would be conducted in Hindi, English and other regional languages, thus providing relief to several states that earlier flagged issues related to language and syllabus.

The Supreme Court had earlier ruled that starting from this academic session, students would have to appear in NEET to seek admission to medical or dental colleges in the country. The court order had implied all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would be covered under NEET and those exams that had already taken place or were due to be conducted separately stand scrapped.

Phase-1 of NEET is over and the Phase-2 is due to be held on July 24. Nearly 6.5 lakh students have already taken the medical entrance test in NEET’s first phase on May 1.