Joining many other States in seeking relief to thousands of anxious medical seat aspirants, the State government on Monday opposed the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to the 2016-17 academic year.

Briefing presspersons here on Monday, Minister of State for Medical Education Sharanprakash Patil said Karnataka has impleaded itself in the case filed by other States, which have sought apex court’s permission to conduct their pre-scheduled test for admissions to these courses. The case is expected to be heard on Tuesday. He said that a majority of the students were not ready to face NEET exam.


SC panel to monitor MCI
Endorsing a Parliamentary Standing Committee report of March 2016 that medical education and profession in the country is at its “lowest ebb” and suffering from “total system failure” due to corruption and decay, the Supreme Court on Monday used its rare and extraordinary powers under the Constitution to set up a three-member committee, headed by former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha, to oversee the functioning of the Medical Council of India (MCI) for at least a year.

A Constitution Bench, led by Justice Anil R. Dave, in a 165-page judgment, said that the apex court was constrained to exercise its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution as the government had not acted on the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare.

Its report on ‘The functioning of the Medical Council of India’ was tabled in Parliament on March 8, 2016.

The judgment referred to the parliamentary panel report, which described the MCI as an “ossified and opaque body” unable to cope with the “humongous” task of managing medical education in over 400 colleges across the country.

“Quality of medical education is at its lowest ebb,” the judgment said, citing the panel report.