With the apex court order, the MCI is set to make provision for a CET for admitting students to all the medical colleges including the private ones in the country.
A Bench comprising Justice R V Raveendran and Justice A K Patnaik said it is for the authorities to notify or denotify the new admission rules and the court cannot interfere in such matters.
The apex court said at this juncture “nothing will come in the way of the decision to be taken by the MCI on the issue of introduction of single window common entrance test on all India basis for admission to undergraduate medical science courses.”
The court will intervene only if there is a notification and there is a petition challenging the question of law. “We are not to give the seal of approval for notification of the law,” said the Bench.
Senior advocate Amarendra Saran appearing for the MCI submitted that a decision to hold common entrance test is to admit only better students, to standardise the entrance test and to bring transparency for admitting students to medical colleges.
Some of the states are opposing the decision of the MCI in view of practical difficulties in implementing the new rules framed by the MCI for admissions. On the last date of hearing Tamil Nadu had opposed the decision of the HRD Ministry.
In a petition, Simran Jain and others have challenged the decision of the HRD ministry to introduce a common entrance test that would also include admission to private medical colleges.
MBBS entrance test
The Centre will convene a meeting of health secretaries next month to know how the common entrance test for MBBS can be implemented.
Following the Supreme Court’s go-ahead to frame the rules on the MBBS CET, sources in the Union Health Ministry told Deccan Herald that the issue would be discussed at the January meeting before a decision on its implementation is taken. Cooperation from the states is a must to bring the CET into force.
According to the Medical Council of India’s proposal, based on the CET a single merit list will be created for close to 35,000 MBBS across the country. The list will also take care of the state, minorities and SC/ST quotas.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will be conducting the examination, which will replace 17 PMTs at the moment. The MCI proposal was challenged in the court.
In the absence of a single CET for engineering and medical streams, 10+2 students now have to sit in a number of tests.