The Supreme Court Allowed for No Common Test for Minority Medical Colleges

The Supreme Court allowed private minority institutions, both religious and linguistic on 13 December 2012 to hold their personal entrance tests for undergraduate and post graduate medical courses.

Though S.C allowed so, it declined to stay the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for 2013-14.

The S.C bench allowed seventy six minority medical colleges who were seeking an exemption from NEET, to conduct their own tests to fill MBBS and MD seats.

Mean while, senior advocates K K Venugopal, K Parasaran, Harish Salve, Rajeev Dhawan and P P Rao stated that since NEET was to take place from the next academic session (2013-14), the court would serve public interest by staying it for a year.

To this, the Medical Council of India, counsel , senior advocate Nidesh Gupta, pointed out that many private and government colleges have already opted for NEET to select candidates and a stay on it may not serve public interest.

The petitioner colleges had wanted exemption from NEET on the ground that they, being either religious or linguistic minority colleges, were entitled to autonomy in administration of their educational institutions . This was asked under the Article 30 of the Constitution.