Unhappy over the Supreme Court verdict scrapping common entrance test for medical colleges, which will hugely benefit the private medical colleges and will push up cost of education, the health ministry is planning to move a review petition.

 

Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad Friday said legal recourse is the only option and legal advice has been sought on the apex court's verdict. "Naturally there is a legal recourse. There is no other way. We have to see if we can go for the review or whatever else we are required to do," Azad said when asked if the ministry is going for a review of the SC order. A petition seeking review comes up before the same bench of the apex court which has delivered the judgement.

 

Azad said he has already held a meeting of top officials on the issue and asked them to study the judgement. "Once we study the judgement then we will take the future course of action," he said. Reacting to the verdict, Azad said, "we were expecting a better outcome, but unfortunately that didn't happen. So it was a little demoralising for us because we wanted to clean up a number of things…We are a little upset with the decision."

 

The minister said students across the country now have to run from pillar to post and appear in different examinations and are still not sure of admission. Since the entrance tests are held around the same time, the students have limited options, he said. "A lot of time is being wasted, lot of money is being wasted and it is too troublesome for the students. So that could have been taken care of only by one examination. "Another important thing is it would have helped us to save some additional seats," Azad said citing examples of students seeking admission in different medical colleges in different seats and resultantly the seats blocked going vacant." As a result there is loss of human resource," he said.

 

The Supreme Court, in its order Thursday, scrapped holding of National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to MBBS, BDS and post-graduate courses in medical colleges, paving the way for private colleges to conduct their own examination.  Students aspiring to pursue medical courses will now have to sit for separate examinations for private universities and colleges and shell out a big amount before taking admissions.

 

Over seven lakh students took the NEET this year for the under graduate courses conducted by CBSE on behalf of Medical Council of India (MCI). Online counselling process for MBBS admissions on the basis of NEET exam is underway and the first round result under the all-India quota would be out tomorrow. The counselling process for the state quotas would be completed by August 2.

 

The health ministry had started the process of holding NEET for MBBS, BDS and post-graduate medical courses in 2009. The NEET has been dogged by controversies all along with some states earlier objecting to holding of the exams only in one language and seeking conduct of tests in different regional languages. Some states also opted out of the all-India quota. Private universities and colleges opposed to the government proposal sought more time to prepare themselves for the all-India exam. They later challenged the MCI notification in the apex court.