Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 5: The Supreme Court on Tuesday lashed out at the central government for, for what it felt, trying to help the private medical colleges running the super-spciality courses at the expense of the government-run colleges.
The court also described the Union government’s offer to defer the National Eligibility Entrance Test for Spur-Speciality Courses (NEET-SS) from currently scheduled November to January as a “sop” wondering why the government couldn’t have waited a year to introduce changes to the pattern of the entrance exam.
In a strongly-worded observation, the court underlined that in its opinion the changes introduced by the government at the last minute, “appeared to have been taken to help private medical colleges” where super specialty course seats go vacant every year.
“We have read your affidavit and it prima facie appears that the entire haste shown by you (government) is for filling the vacant seats. The seats that go vacant are never in government colleges. This gives a strong impression that regulation of medical education has become a business. We will hear this matter. Please put your house in order otherwise the hands of the law are very long,” the bench comprising justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, Vikram Nath and BV Nagarathna said on two petitions filed by 41 post-graduate doctors seeking NEET-SS entrance tests.
The doctors complained that the examination was notified on July 23, but on August 31, the National Board of Examinations (NBE), which conducts NEET-SS, announced a change in the exam pattern for NEET-SS for admission to over 4,200 seats for DM (Doctorate of Medicine), M.Ch (Master of Surgery) and DrNB (Doctorate of National Board). The exam was to be held on November 13 and 14. The doctors said they had prepared for the exam based on the older pattern used since 2018.
In its affidavit filed on October 1, the Centre and NBE declined to modify the examination pattern but said it was open to defer the examination by two months to January 10-11, 2022 to let the doctors prepare.
The court wasn’t satisfied. “You have held up some sop to the court when your fundamental process of holding the exam is under question. Deferring the examination for two months will do no good,” the court told the government at Tuesday’s hearing.
The bench told Centre, NBE and National Medical Commission “to apply wisdom in its decision-making process.” It will continue hearing the case on Wednesday. The post graduate doctors who filed the petition said the existing exam pattern tested the candidate on their knowledge of the super specialty stream that they wished to pursue. The examination asked 60% questions from the super specialty of the candidate’s choice while the remaining 40% tested the candidate on a mix of broad specialty courses of which one was general medicine.
Under the new pattern, 100% questions were to come from the broad specialty course of general medicine. Additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, told the court that every year, seats in the super specialty courses ended up vacant due to the exam pattern. Last year, 805 out of 4,286 seats remained vacant while in 2019, the vacant seats totalled 545.
“Heavens would not have fallen if you would have introduced the changes from next year,” the bench said, adding, “Seats falling vacant is the concern of the management of medical colleges. Tell us how many seats go vacant in government colleges. You can give us the breakup between government and private colleges where seats fall vacant.”
Senior advocate Maninder Singh who appeared for NBE, said the old examination scheme tested the candidate on a subject that he was supposed to join. The new pattern allows all candidates to be tested on the same footing, he said, asserting that the board will “prove to the court that the change in pattern has not been done to fill the vacancies.”
Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for the petitioners, told the court that clinical practice was an important component for admission into super specialty courses. Due to this, many doctors practised in the super specialty stream to get admission into the course of their choice. Some even left their jobs and prepared for the examination for over a year.
“This is the tragedy of our medical education,” the court said. “See how botched up our education system is. You first make them study for this super specialty course and after they have prepared for the examination of which 60% questions would come from their choice of discipline, you are privileging candidates who did general medicine at the cost of other super specialties. Have some concern for these doctors.”
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared in a fresh petition filed by post graduate doctors specializing in Oncology, said the largest number of seats going vacant were in private colleges. He also stressed that there was no consultation on changing the examination pattern before July 23. He further added that before 2018, when the existing pattern was introduced, 100% questions in NEET-SS test came from the specialty course opted for by the candidate.
