Supreme Court upholds constitutionality of NEET exam for admission to medical colleges

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for graduate and undergraduate courses in medical and dental courses in the country. In a batch of writ petitions titled 'Christian Medical College, Vellore vs Union of India' which were filed in 2012, the bench ruled that prescribing a uniform examination does not violate rights of unaided/aided minor institutions under Articles 19(1)(g) and 30 read with 25, 26 & 29(1) of the Constitution. 

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Petitions challenged the constitutionality of NEET

The petitions filed challenged the constitutional validity of the NEET notifications issued by the Medical Council of India and Dental Council of India. The notifications were later incorporated as statutory provisions in 2016 as Sections 10D of the Medical Council of India Act and the Dentists Act. The bench comprising of Justices Arun Mishra, Vineet Saran and MR Shah upheld the constitutional validity of these statutory provisions and stated that NEET was introduced to weed out corruption in admission processes, and also to set a uniform stand across the nation. 

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Upholding NEET as a uniform examination, the three-judge bench observed: 

"The rights under Article 19(1) are not absolute and are subject to reasonable restriction in the interest of the student community to promote merit, recognition of excellence, and to curb the malpractices. Uniform Enterance Test qualifies the test of proportionality and is reasonable. The same is intended to check several maladies which crept into medical education, to prevent capitation fee by admitting students which are lower in merit and to prevent exploitation, profiteering, and commercialisation of education."

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The apex court also added that the uniform entrance examination cannot be said to be an unreasonable regulatory framework.  "There is no right given to maladminister the education derogatory to the national interest. The quality of medical education is imperative to subserve the national interest, and the merit cannot be comprised," the bench said. 

Owing to the Coronavirus pandemic, the HRD Ministry had indefinitely postponed NEET 2020 exam. The exam was scheduled to be held on May 3.

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