NEET: Supreme Court to hear appeal from 11 states today

The three judge Bench of the Supreme Court will hear the appeal from 11 states including West Bengal on Tuesday in which all the states have urged the Apex court not to introduce national level entrance test, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) this year so that these states can conduct their own entrance examinations.

The three judge Bench has accepted the appeal of these states and has consented to hear the matter on Tuesday. It may be mentioned here that the Central government also expressed its disability to conduct NEET this year due to some technical problems.

It was learnt from the sources that the Prime Minister’s office took up the issue with utmost importance after a city doctor had written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to take some steps so that the state level examinations could be conducted by respective states this year of which the Millennium Post has carried a news on Sunday.

In the letter, Dr AK Maity told the Prime Minister that around 60-65 thousand medical aspirants from West Bengal would suffer if they have to sit NEET for various reasons.

On April 30, the Apex Court paved the way for NEET as it announced that the examinations will be held in two phases for the MBBS, BDS and PG courses.

The court said that the first phase would 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 Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) 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.

The students who appeared on the NEET-1 on Sunday could not take preparation as they had no prior knowledge about the introduction of NEET and the syllabus of the examinations as they were preparing for the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examinations.

Even the students would not get enough time for NEET-2 scheduled on August 17.