The Central government informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday that a high-level committee has been constituted to thoroughly review the admission process based on the ‘NEET-PG’ qualifying entrance examination for postgraduate medical admissions.
Following the fact that 18,000 seats across the country remained vacant in postgraduate medical admissions, the National Board of Examinations issued an order on January 13 last year to significantly lower the NEET-PG qualifying score (cut-off) for admissions.
In opposition to this, petitions were filed in the Supreme Court by social activist Harisharan Devgan and doctors Saurav Kumar, Lakshya Mittal, and Akash Soni. In their petition, they stated that lowering the qualifying marks would violate Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, which guarantee equal opportunity for all, and would also affect the quality of postgraduate medical education.
After hearing these petitions, the Supreme Court ordered the formation of a committee to examine whether lowering the qualifying marks would affect medical education.
This case came up for hearing again on Tuesday before a bench of Supreme Court judges B.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe.
At that time, the Central Government stated that, in accordance with the Supreme Court’s order, a high-level committee had been constituted to examine the postgraduate medical admission process. This information was conveyed by Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, who appeared on behalf of the Central Government.
She said that the Central Government had issued a notification on July 23 setting up a 12-member high-level committee headed by the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) to conduct a detailed audit of the admission process based on the ‘NEET-PG’ qualifying entrance examination for postgraduate medical admissions.
The judges took note of this and ordered that 8 weeks be granted for the high-level committee to submit its report.
They also stated that once the high-level committee’s report is submitted, this matter will be examined in depth. The judges further said that the high-level committee may include members of the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine and the National Commission for Homoeopathy in this review, and adjourned the hearing.
