Court News

NEET applies to minority colleges: SC

‘It doesn’t violate fundamental rights’

30/04/2020, KRISHNADAS RAJAGOPAL, NEW DELHI

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) is mandatory for admission to medical colleges run by religious and linguistic minority communities, the Supreme Court held on Wednesday.

A three-judge Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra held that admissions solely through NEET for graduate and postgraduate medical/dental courses does not violate any fundamental and religious rights of minorities. NEET would apply for both aided and unaided medical colleges run by minorities.

The court dismissed arguments by the managements of several minority-run medical institutions, including the Christian Medical College Vellore Association, that bringing them uniformly under the ambit of NEET would be a violation of their fundamental right to “occupation, trade and business”.

The colleges had argued that imposing NEET would violate their fundamental rights of religious freedom, to manage their religious affairs, to administer their institutions. They said the State was reneging on its obligation to act in the best interest of minorities.

But Justice Mishra, who wrote the 108-page judgment, said it was time the field of education returned to the “realm of charity”, a character it had lost over the years. NEET was brought in to weed out malpractices in the field.

The court held that the rights of trade, business and occupation or religious rights “do not come in the way of securing transparency and recognition of merits in admissions”.