Take a relook at NEET

Vijay GarG
National Eligibility and Entrance Test, which is conducted to admit students for the MBBS programme, has been facing stiff opposition from some of the states such as Tamil Nadu since its implementation through Supreme Court order in 2016.
In the past six years, it looks like the disadvantages of this “One, Nation, One Merit, One Examination” have stacked up well against its advantages. The implementation of NEET was never a smooth process and since the beginning it faced a lot of opposition from students, colleges and state governments.
It was introduced by the erstwhile Medical Council of India for the first time in 2010. Immediately, it was challenged by some state governments, mainly Tamil Nadu, and many private medical colleges in the High Court of Madras and other High Courts in India. The contesting parties saw NEET as an assault upon their freedom to admit students through the process largely formulated by them.
Meanwhile, in another matter pending before the Supreme Court, the apex court asked the Central Government and MCI to come up with a single-window system for medical entrance.
In 2012, a sitting judge of the Supreme Court while hearing some other matter, verbally advised the MCI lawyers to move transfer petitions so that all the cases pending against NEET in other high courts could be heard at one place and given finality. On July 18, 2013, a three-judge bench headed by the then Chief Justice Altamas Kabir set aside NEET. One of the judges, Justice AR Dave dissented with the verdict.
Three years later in April 2016, MCI filed a review petition pleading the reassessment of the 2013 order and the Supreme Court allowed it to hear. The very next day, the apex court also entertained a PIL filed by Dr (Major) Gulshan Garg, Orthopaedic Surgeon and Chairman, Sankalp Charitable Trust for holding NEET. To be contd