Medical aspirants in a fix as SC implements NEET this year

Around 60-65 thousands medical aspirants in West Bengal who were preparing for the state level joint entrance examinations scheduled on May 17 are confused after the Supreme Court on Thursday announced that National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) should be implemented this year.

The three judge Bench of the Supreme Court accepted the schedule given by the Central Board of Secondary Examinations (CBSE) and gave a green signal for holding NEET. As per the order no state will be able to conduct its own medical entrance examinations from now. As a result of this candidates from the state who were preparing for the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examinations are confused as they would not get enough time to prepare for the national level entrance examination within a very short period of time, the syllabus of which is entirely different from that of the state.

Paving the way for the NEET, the Apex Court said that the entrance examination will be held in two phases for the MBBS, BDS and PG courses through NEET. The first phase will be held on May 1 while the second phase will be held on July 24 and the combined result will be declared on August 17. The CBSE had proposed the court that all India PMT examination which is scheduled to take place on May 1 can be treated as NEET – 1 and the second phase would be treated as NEET -2 which will be held on July 24.

The students who have applied for the AIPMT can only sit in the NEET -1 examination and those who have not applied for AIPMT have to appear in the NEET -2. The admission will commence in September.

Among the total of around 60,000-65,000 medical aspirants in West Bengal, around 15-20 thousand candidates have also filled up application forms for the AIPMT. Only these candidates can appear in the NEET -1 examination but those who have not filled the application for AIPMT have to sit in the NEET -2. Most of the candidates who were not interested in AIPMT have to fill up application forms for the NEET -2. Even those who filled up the AIPMT application form are not acquainted with the NEET syllabus as they were mainly preparing for the state joint entrance examination.

Some of the medical aspirants in the state said that they would not get enough time prepare the syllabus which was different from that of West Bengal. If the examinations are held from this year the candidates from West Bengal will face some problems.

It may be mentioned that many states and universities in 2009 had opposed the introduction of the national level single medical entrance examination in the name of NEET. Though the Central government, Medical Council of India and the CBSE tried to implement the examinations. Some filed petitions in the Supreme Court against the Centre saying that the examination was unconstitutional. After going though the details the Supreme Court scrapped the NEET in 2003. Later, the central government filed a review petition.

On April 11 this year the Supreme Court had recalled its 2013 judgment by which it had quashed the NEET as unconstitutional. A five judge bench presided by Justice Anil Dave passed that order while allowing the review petitioners and directing that the matter would be heard afresh.