SC refuses to stay NEET Ordinance, expresses displeasure with govt

The court issued the order taking into account the interest of lakhs of aspiring medical students. It said half of them had already written the exams. The Apex Court, however, expressed its displeasure with the government over the NEET Ordinance and refused to interfere in the matter for now. “Prima facie, we find that the validity of the NEET Ordinance is open to doubt. But as 50 per cent of the states have already conducted their exams, we do not want to grant the petitioners any interim relief,” a three-judge Bench, led by Justice Anil R Dave, observed.

The Bench reacted sharply to the to the contention of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that it should not take the Ordinance to its “ego” as it pertains to the welfare of students, who have prepared for months for various state medical examinations.

“Those states, which have held examinations before the Ordinance and after our order, is patently bad. It will be a total mess. Students’ future is at stake and their interests need to be considered. They are our children,” the Bench said.

The Ordinance, issued on May 24, 2016, allows the states to conduct their own exams, despite the Supreme Court order dated May 9, 2016, that said only NEET would prevail. The Apex Court on Thursday said that ordering a freeze on the Ordinance at this stage would trigger chaos as lakhs of students across 17 states had already taken the exams.

The court’s May 9 order was passed despite objections from several states and private medical colleges that they have their own exams and many were underway or about to begin. At that time, the court simply had asked them to fall in line.

The Bench was hearing petitions filed by the Sankalp Charitable Trust and Vyapam scam whistle blower Anand Rai on how the government took the liberty, by issuing the ordinance, of donning the role of an “appellate court of the SC”.

“By issuing this Ordinance and delaying the compliance of your order by a year, the government engaged in a judicial function... became your appellate power. This is about respect for an institution under the Constitution —the highest court of the land. Once an order is passed, it has to be complied with,” senior advocate Amarendra Sharan submitted. He said if the court did not check this act, successive governments would also indulge in bypassing court orders and rule of law would suffer.

“We find that even after our order on May 9, several states ignored us and continued with their own exams. This was not in good taste. We find that out of 36, 17 States have already held their own exams,” Justice Dave observed. “Your move to bring this Ordinance despite our order was not proper...When the court said ‘no’ to state exams, you disregard us and issue an ordinance for state exams... Did you not think about the confusion it would cause to the children? After all these are our children,” Justice Dave told Rohatgi.