Supreme Court will hear petitions on NEET today

The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday a batch of petitions from various states and private medical college associations seeking a stay of the NEET order insofar as its applicability to them is concerned for the academic year 2016-17.

A bench headed by Justice Anil R. Dave will hear the matter, which arose following the recall of the July 2013 order quashing the NEET notification. Since the December 2010 notification on NEET stood restored, Maharashtra, Gujarat, MP, UP, J&K, Puducherry and the Karnataka Private Medical Colleges Association filed applications seeking a stay of the operation of the NEET order passed on April 28 and to exempt them from this test for this year.

Puducherry in its application said the order should be stayed as otherwise it will cause grave injustice to the students of the Union Territory, which has a well laid out policy in respect of medical college admissions. It said there has been no entrance examination since 2008 and students are evaluated based on marks obtained in the Class 12 board examinations.

By the April 28 order, which has been passed without giving a chance to hear the plight of students, thousands of students would be made to suffer as they would have to compete in a common entrance examination of which they have neither concept nor idea. It said it was the policy of the UT government, and practised all these years, to not have entrance examinations in a bid to achieve aspirational parity between rural and urban children.