The Supreme Court has dismissed the High Court’s order for allowing the MBBS student who applied for NEET 2019 Admission. Students need to reach the Supreme court at the earliest to avoid any further delay.
What was the case?
On July 9, 2019, the Delhi High Court dismissed a number of applications seeking to have the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2019 results quashed on the grounds that some questions had more than one valid answer.
The court stated that the medical aspirants’ reliance on a prior judgement of the high court’s division bench is completely inapplicable here since the facts of that case are “not in pari materia (on the same topic or matter)” with the facts of this case. The petitions, as well as the applications that accompanied them, were all rejected.
Various medical aspirants who appeared in the NEET 2019 filed four different but identical petitions with the court, which resulted in the same judgement. The petitions sought to have the NEET under-graduate 2019 result, which was released by the National Testing Agency on June 5, 2019, invalidated.
The dispute included the admission to MBBS of certain candidates who had taken the NEET UG test in 2019. Even after the counselling procedure, they were unable to get admission to the MBBS programme.
What does NMC say?
The High Court directed the relevant authorities to admit students to the first year MBBS programme for the academic year 2020-2021 in the vacant seats that existed for the academic year 2019-2020 earlier this year. Beginning on February 1, 2021, the students began attending first-year MBBS classes.
The National Medical Commission (NMC) petitioned the Supreme Court on February 9, 2021, claiming that the High Court acted wrongly in authorizing the admission of these students to the vacancies that emerged during the academic year 2019-2020.
The counsel for NMC argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in S. Krishna Sradha v. The State of Andhra Pradesh & Ors., reported in 2019 SCC Online SC 1609, could not help the candidates because they approached the High Court one and a half years after the deadline for admission for the academic year 2019-2020.
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The students’ counsel asked the court to allow the students to continue their studies and take the first-year examination, especially because there is no disagreement about the existence of unfilled seats for the 2019-2020 academic year. The lawyer for the concerned university also acknowledged that there were empty seats for the academic year 2019-2020.
After hearing these arguments, the Supreme Court acknowledged that a few unfilled seats were available for admission for the 2019-2020 academic year, as well as the fact that students who were less deserving than the writ petitioners had been admitted for the 2019-2020 school year.
What is SC’s decision?
The Supreme Court, in upholding the High Court’s judgement, stated that the Court’s involvement would result in the students losing an academic year. However, we cannot uphold the High Court’s decision to allow admission for the 2020-2021 academic year since it contradicts this Court’s decision in the S. Krishna Sradha case. The students moved the High Court about a year and a half after the deadline for first-year MBBS admissions for the academic year 2019-2020 passed.
- Krishna Sradha verdict
“However, in paragraph 33 of the ruling, the requirements for granting relief or requesting admission to eligible courses after the final day are stated. One of the most important requirements is that the student come to the Court as soon as possible. In addition, the ruling said that if students are granted admission, the number of seats assigned in the management quota for the next year must be lowered.”
First come first serve method
The Supreme Court decided that under extraordinary circumstances, a directive might be given to admit deserving applicants to the MBBS programme after the cut-off date. The benefit of this may only be obtained by candidates who arrive in the court without delay, according to the SC.
Conclusion
In 2019, few aspirants filed a petition regarding the question paper pattern, as they said there were more than one correct answer to the question. The court at that time invalidated the petitions filled. After almost a year and half again the petition for the same was opened, this time the high court ordered to admit the students in the academic session 2020-2021 on the vacant seats for 2019-2020 session.
SC said that they can’t uphold the HC’s decision according to the S. Krishna Sradha. Although the students approached after a year and half, still the one who reached the court at the earliest can avail the admission for the session 2020-2021.