National entrance test for MBBS from 2012-13, MCI tells court

The Medical Council of India on Monday informed the Supreme Court of its proposal to hold a national eligibility-cum-entrance test (NEET) for MBBS admissions from 2012-13, and that the core syllabus for NEET-UG (undergraduation) had been put on its website.

Senior counsel Amarendra Saran made this submission before a Bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran and A.K. Patnaik, hearing a petition on a common entrance test (CET) and certain other issues.

Mr. Saran said the NEET for undergraduate courses would be held in April-May. For the postgraduate courses, modalities were being worked out and the core syllabus would be put on the MCI website in August. The test would be held in January-February next.

Petition disposed of
Counsel submitted to the court a copy of the MCI communication. To a question from Justice Raveendran, he said rules for the CET had been put in place. The judge said, “In that case, you conduct the CET and we don’t want to keep this petition pending.” Accordingly, the Bench disposed it of, after taking on record the MCI communication.
Tamil Nadu already obtained from the Madras High Court an interim stay on implementation of the NEET in the State, as legislation had been put in place abolishing the entrance test for professional courses.

A similar interim stay was obtained by the D.D. Medical College and D.D. Hospital, near Chennai, which had earlier filed, through its chairman T.D. Naidu, an application in the Supreme Court in support of the Tamil Nadu stand against the CET.

MCI communication
As per the MCI communication, a meeting on July 18, chaired by the Union Health Secretary and attended by officials including from the MCI, the Central Board of Secondary Education and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, was informed that after the March 29 national meet with the stakeholders, a booklet was released. It was decided to make the core syllabus for NEET-UG available on the MCI website for feedback from the stakeholders, and the syllabus for NEET-PG in August.

As for NEET-superspecialities across the country, it was said modalities were being worked out and the examination was scheduled for June 2012. The pattern of the examination, distribution of questions across different MD/MS subjects, and model questions would be made available on the website in February/March 2012.






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