CHRISTIAN MEDICAL COLLEGE VELLORE & ORSversusUNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

                     [2013] 5 S.C.R. 573


   CHRISTIAN MEDICAL COLLEGE VELLORE & ORS                           A
                                v.
                 UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.
                  (T.C.(C) N0.98 OF 2012)
                         MAY 13, 2013
                                                                     B
       [ALTAMAS KABIR, CJI, ANIL R. DAVE AND
               VIKRAMAJIT SEN. JJ.]

      Education - Admission - Medical Courses - Notification
published on 27th December, 2010, being No. MCl-81(1)/               C
2010-MED/49070 dated 21st December, 2010, issued by the
Medical Council of India (MCI), notifying a National Eligibility
Entrance Test (NEET) - Competence of the MCI to introduce-
such a test which denudes different medical colleges from
having any control over their entrance examinations and              D
 admissions on the basis thereof - On 13th December, 2012,
 Supreme Court posted the matters for final hearing on 15th,
 16th and 17th January, 2013, and allowed the respective
 entrance examinations, which had already been notified, to
 be held, while the hearing progressed but directed that results     E
 of the examinations were not to be declared until further orders
 of the Court- However, hearing could not be concluded within
 17th January, 2013 - Held: On account of the. delay in
 completion of the hearing and the prospect of the students
 losing a year on account thereof, students hoping to gain
                                                                     F
 admission on the strength of the results of the examinations,
 which have already been held and for which they had
 appeared, should not be denied such opportunity, at least for
this year - Without fresh entrants into the Post-Graduate
courses, even for a year, the hospitals are likely to be
adversely affected - Besides, the students have been caught          G
in the legal tangle for no fault of th!Jirs and are the victims of
policy decisions - In order to safeguard their interests, as also
the interest of the hospitals, the bar imposed on 13th
                              573                                    H
         574      SUPREME COURT REPORTS                  [2013] 5 S.C.R.


     A December, 2012, for this year's entrance examinations is lifted
       and, to that extent, order of 13th December, 2012 modified -
       Results of the examinations aiready conducted allowed to be
       declared to enable the students to take adva~tage of the
       same for the current year - Indian Medical Council Act, 1956
     B -s.3.

             CIVIL ORIGINAL J_URlSDICTION : Transfer Case (Civil) No.
         98 of 2012 etc.

               Under Article 139 of the Constitution of India.
     c
                                       WITI-1

       WITH T.C.(C) N0.99, 101, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 105, 108,
       110, 132-134, 117-118, 115-116, 125-127, 113-114, 128-130,
     D 121-122, 131, 123-124, 111, 120, 119, 135-137, 138-139, 142
       144 and 145 of 2012.

       T.C.(C) Nos. 1, 14-15, 76, 12-13, 4, 11, 21-22, 5, 60, 2, 8, 3,
       9, 17, 10, 7, 18, 75, 19, 20, 59,53,25, 23-24,58, 72, 16, 61,
       73, 62, 28-29, 30, 31-32, 33-36, 37-38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44,
     E 45, 46, 47, 48, 63-65, 66-69, 70-71 of 2013.

         W.P.(C) N0.480, 468, 467, 478, 481, 464, 495, 511, 512, 514,
         516, 519, 535, 544, 546, 547, 483, 501, 502, 504 and 507-of
         2012.

     F   W.P.(C) Nos. 2, 1, 13, 15, 16, 20, 24, 26, 47, 66, 76, 74, 41
         and 228 of 2013 T.P. (C) Nos. 31 and 79 of 2013.

           Sidharth Luthra, ASG, L. Nageshwara Rao, A.K. Panda,
.      Harish N. Salve, K. Parasaran, P. Vishwanatha Shetty, R.
     G Venkataramani, Anoop George, Chaudhuri, June Chaudhuri,
       Nidhesh Gupta, T.R. Andhiyarujina, Mukul Gupta, K.K.
       Venugopal, Madhu R. Naik, S. Gurukrishna Kumar, V. Giri, Ajit
       Kumar Sinha, K. Radhakrishna, Uday U. Lalit, Subramonium
       Prasad, Dr. Manish Singhvi, AAg, Allanki Ramesh, G. Madhavi,

..   H Y. Rajesh Kumar, D. Geetha, Manju, C.S.N. Mohan Rao,



-
CHRISTIAN MEDICAL COLLEGE VELLORE v. UNION 575
                  OF INDIA
Lingaraj Sarangi, Satyajit Bahera, Pravin H. Parekh, E.R.        A
Kumar, Aparajita Singh Gayatri Goswami, Geethi Ara, Chetna,
R. Bobde, Ritika Sethi, Vishal Prasad (for Parekh & Co.), G.N.
Reddy, Sanjay Misra, Sangita Chauhan, Rakesh K. Sharma,
Senthil Jagadeesan, K.K. Mani, Neeraj Shekhar, Ashutosh
Thakur, Sadique Mohd., Sanjay R. Hegde, S. Nithin, Amit          B
Kumar Mishra, G. Umapathy, Satish Parasaran, M.A.
Venkatasubranian, R. Mekhale, Amit Kumar, Meenakshi Arora,
A. Ramesh, Y. Rajesh Kumar, Manju Jana, Shilpi, Lokesh
Kumar Sharma, B. Balaji, Dr. Sushil Balwada, Shashi Kiran
Shetty, Sharan Thakur, S. Udaya Kumar Sagar, Bina                c
Madhavan, Pra.seena E. Joseph, Shivendra Singh (for
Lawywer's Knit & Co.), R. Jagannath G., E.R. Sumathy, Naveen
R. Nath, L.M. Bhat, Hetu Arora, Amrita Sharma, Darpan K.M.,
Rameshwar Prasad Goyal, Dharmendra Kumar Sinha, Jayanth
Muth Raj, Malavika J.,Sureshan P., Radha Shyam Jena, Rajiv       D
Yadav, Amit Anand Tiwari, Ashwarya Sinha, Jayesh Gaurav,
Ambhoj Kumar Sinha, Ambar Qamaruddin, G.S. Kannur,
Rajesh Kumar, Savita Danda, Lokesh Kumar, Nirada Das,
Vaijayanthi Girish, P. George, Gaurav Sharma, Surbi Mehta,
Naveen Prakash, S. Chandra Shekhar, V.G. Pragasam, S.J.
Aristotle, S. Prabu Ramasubramanian, Supriya Garg, Neelam        E
Singh, Shodhan Babu, E.C. Agrawala, Abhijat P. Medh,V.
Balachandran, Gopal BalwantSathe, G. Umapathy, S.
Gowthaman, Ranjith B., Shivaji M. Jadhav, Prity Kunwar, A.
Venayagam Balan, K.K. Trivedi, Priyanka Adyaru, Rameshwar
Prasad Goyal. K.V. Sreekumar, R.P. Goyal, K. Rajeev, L.R.        F
Singh, Namita Choudhary, E.M.S. Anam, Dushyant Parashar,
Ravindra Keshavrao Adsure, Shakil Ahmed Syed, Mohd.
Parvez Dabas, S.A. Saud, Amit Kumar, Atul Kumar, Rekha
Bakshi, Ashish Kumar, Ankit Rajagaria, Supriya Juneja, Gargi
Khanna, Arjun Diwan, Akansha Tandan, V. Prabhakar, R.            G
Candrachud, Jyoti Prashar, Tara Chandra Sharma, Neelam
Sharma, Rajeev Sharma, Ajay Sharma, Rupesh Kumar, G.S.
Kannur, Vaijayanthi Girish, Ravi Shah, Rudreshwar Singh,
Rakesh Gosain, Kaushik Poddar, Garvesh Kabra, Y. Raja
Gopala Rao, B. Balaji, R. Rakesh Sharma, Suruchi Aggarwal,       H
   576      SUPREME COURT REPORTS                  [2013] 5 S.C.R.


A Anjali Chauhan, Rishab Kaushik, Nandini Gupta, Hemantika
  Wahi, G.N. Reddy, B. Debojit,Shasank Babu, Sodhan Babu,
  Neelam Singh, Supriya Garg, Amitesh Kumar, Ravi Kant, C.S.
  Singh, Gopal Singh, Abhigya, Abhay Singh Kushwaha,
  PradeepKumar Dubey, Sarthak Mehrotra, Navin Chawala, Bina
B Gupta, Amit Anand Tiwari, Tejveer Singh Bhatia, Prathibha M.
  Singh, Surbhi Mehta, Gaurav Sharma, Farah Fathima (for
  Lawyers Knit & Co.), Arputham Aruna & Co., Abdhesh
  Choudhary, Rajni Ranjan Dwivedi, Bhavanishnkar V. Gadnis,
  Sunita B. Rao, K.H. Nobin Singh, Sapam Biswajit Meitie, lrshad
C Ahmad for the appearing parties.

         The Order of the Court was delivered by

                             ORDER

       ALTAMAS KABIR, CJI. 1. In all these 115 matters, which
  include writ petitions filed in this Court and in different High
  Courts, which have been transferred to this Court for decision,
  the subject matter of challenge is a notification published on
  27th December, 2010, being No. MCl-81 (1 )/201 O-MED/49070
E dated 21st December, 2010, issued by the Medical Council of
  India, notifying a National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for
  admission to Post-Graduate Medical Courses conducted in
  colleges all across the country.

      2. The challenge to the said notification gave rise to a wide
F range of submissions involving the competence of the Medical
  Council of India, constituted under Section 3 of the Indian
  Medical Council Act, 1956, to introduce such a test which
  denudes the different medical colleges across the country from
  having any control over their entrance examinations and
G admissions on the basis thereof.

       3. On 13th December, 2012, when the matters were taken
  up for consideration, we decided to post the matters for final
  hearing on 15th, 16th and 17th January, 2013, and allowed the
H respective entrance examinations, which had already been
 CHRISTIAN MEDICAL COLLEGE VELLORE v. UNION 577
          OF INDIA [ALTAMAS KABIR,CJI.]
 notified, to be held, while the hearing progressed. Such            A
 examinations included the National Eligibility Entrance
 Test(NEET} for both MBBS and Post-Graduate courses in
 different disciplines, as also the BDS and MDS examinations.
 Presuming that the hearing would be completed on the dates
 indicated, we had directed that the Medical Council of India,       8
 the Dental Council of India, as well as the States and
 Universities and other institutions, would be entitled to conduct
 their respective examinations for the MBBS, BOS and Post-
 Graduate courses, but the results of the examinations were not
 to be declared until further orders of the Court. Consequently,     C
 although, the examinations have been held, the results have
 been withheld and have not been declared, on account of the
 interim order passed by us.

      4. The hearing could not be concluded within 17th January,
 2013, as we had hoped, on account of the enlargement of the         :o
 scope of the hearing and the large number of parties who had
 to be heard in the matter. In fact, the matters were last heard
 on 3oth April, 2013, and it has, therefore, not been possible to
 pronounce judgment before the Supreme Court closed for the
 summer vacations on 10th May, 2013.                                 E

        5. While the matters were being heard, we had been
  informed by the learned senior counsel appearing for the
  Christian Medical College, Vellore, and the Karnataka Pvt.
  Medical & Dental College, that a large number of students F
. would be adversely affected and would stand to lose a year, if
  the bar on the declaration of their results was not lifted.
  Although, initially, we had declined to entertain such prayer, on
  account of the delay in completion of the hearing and the
  prospect of the students losing a year on account thereof, we .
  feel that students hoping to gain admission in the MBBS as well G
  as Post-Graduate courses on the strength of the results of the
  examinations, which have already been held and for which they
  had appeared, should not be denied such opportunity, at least
  for this year. We are also alive to the fact that it is the Post-
                                                                    H
   578      SUPREME COURT REPORTS                   [2013] 5 S.C.R.


A Graduate students in the medical colleges, who take charge
  of the medical treatment of patients in the hospitals. Without
  fresh entrants into the Post-Graduate courses, even for a year,
  the hospitals are likely to be adversely affected on account of
  lack of doctors to directly take care of the patients in the
8 hospitals.

       6. Apart from the above, the students, who aspire to gain
  entry into the medical colleges at the MBBS and BOS and the
  Post-Graduate levels, have been caught in the legal tangle for
  no fault of theirs and are the victims of policy decisions. In order
C to safeguard their interests, as also the interest of the hospitals,
  we consider it just and equitable to lift the bar imposed by us
  on 13th December, 2012, for this year's entrance examinations
  and, to that extent, we modify our order of 13th December,
  2012, and allow the results of the examinations already
D conducted to be declared to enable the students to take
  advantage of the same for the current year.

   B.B.B.                                      Matters disposed of.