New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Centre’s plea to modify its order on conducting the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for admission into medical courses and said that the examination will go on as scheduled on Sunday, May 1.
At 10.30 am, Attorney General, Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre, in a sudden U-turn told a bench of Justices Anil R. Dave and A.K. Goel that there was some difficulties in holding the Neet-1 exam on May 1.
He said the order should be modified as there was a lot of confusion in the minds of the students and the states.
He suggested to the court that the first phase of Neet scheduled for May 1 be scrapped and that there should be only one test on July 24.
The AG said the May 1 test was to be held in English and Hindi; the July 24 exam would be held in English and six vernacular languages, this would be discriminatory for some states. “For us all states are equal,” he said.
He also said that some states, like AP and Kerala had conducted the entrance tests, while others, ;llike Maharashtra, Gujarat and Telangana, were to hold their test in the next few days. They should be allowed to hold these tests as scheduled, he said.
Justice Dave told the AG “we are also equally concerned about the future of students, the next generation of doctors.”
Senior counsel L. Nageswara Rao, appearing for Tamil Nadu and counsel for AP, TS, Maharashtra, UP, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh supported the AG.
At 2 pm, when the bench assembled after lunch, Justice Dave told the counsel “We have passed our order. Let the exams go on. We will hear the matter on May 3 and Whoever wants to file applications, they may do so.”
