Supreme Court: In a special leave petition by undergraduate AYUSH courses students dealing with the question of whether the petitioners were eligible for admission on the basis of selection made by the college concerned based on merit since the petitioners did not appear in the NEET UG-2019 examination, the Division Bench of Sudhanshu Dhulia and K. Vinod Chandran, JJ. the Court at the outset stated that the petitioners had completed their AYUSH course for which they were granted admission, hence, it was futile to withhold their results vide Court’s previous order dated 19-04-2021.
The Court said that it is true that admission to candidates who had not appeared in the NEET examination could not have been given by the College, however, these students had already completed their course and to withhold the exam results or their degree would cause immense hardship to them.
Background
The petitioners’ admissions were questioned and they filed petitions before the Calcutta High Court where the Single Judge allowed admission of non-NEET students in AYUSH courses on the ground that there was no proper publication of the applicability of NEET UG-2019 for admission to such AYUSH courses.
In an appeal by the Union of India, the Division Bench of the High Court set aside the orders passed by the Single Judge allowing admission of non-NEET students. The Division Bench, relying upon the details supplied by the Government via an affidavit, said that pursuant to a notice published in newspapers on 07-11-2018, the candidates were required to qualify NEET to gain admission to AYUSH UG courses. Other candidates had in fact appeared in NEET, and ultimately were admitted to AYUSH UG courses.
The petitioners’ case was that they were not aware of the fact that for seeking admission to the said courses, they were required to appear for the NEET UG-2019 examination.
[Ebtesham Khatoon v. Union of India, SLP(C) No(s). 6658/2021, decided on: 12-02-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For Petitioners: Mr. Indranil Ghosh, Adv. Mr. Plazer Moktan, Adv. Mr. Satya Mitra, AOR
For Respondents: Mr. S.D Sanjay, A.S.G. Mr. Gurmeet Singh Makker, AOR Mr. Akshay Amritanshu, Adv. Mr. Siddhant Kohli, Adv. Mr. Aaditya Dixit, Adv. Ms. Sweksha, Adv. Ms. Pankhuri Shrivastava, Adv. Ms. Neelam Sharma, AOR Mr. Alekshendra Sharma, Adv. Mr. Aditya Kumar, Adv. Ms. Astha Sharma, AOR Mr. Soumitra G. Chaudhuri, Adv. Mr. Chanchal Kumar Ganguli, AOR Mr. Ranjan Mukherjee, Adv. Mr. Santanu Das, Adv. Mr. Anindo Mukherjee, Adv. Mr. Rameshwar Prasad Goyal, AOR Mr. Chandra Bhushan Prasad, AOR Mr. Bikas Kar Gupta, Adv. Mr. Azim H. Laskar, Adv. Mr. Md. Sarfaraz, Adv. Mr. Harsh Verma, Adv. Mr. Debanjan Mandal, Adv. Mr. Kunal Mimani, AOR Mr. Tanish Arora, Adv.
