The Supreme Court on April 28, 2016 cleared the decks for holding National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET), a single common entrance test for admission to MBBS and BDS courses. The test will occur in two phases for the academic year 2016-17 in which around 6.5 lakh candidates would likely appear. The Apex Court approved the schedule put before it by the Centre, CBSE and the Medical Council of India for treating All India Pre- Medical Test (AIPMT) as NEET-I. Those who have not applied for AIPMT will be given opportunity to appear in NEET-II on July 24, 2016 and the combined result would be declared on August 17, 2016. The bench led by Justice Anil R Dave also said “To allay any such apprehension, we direct that all such eligible candidates who could not appear in NEET-I and those who had appeared but have apprehension that they had not prepared well, be permitted to appear in NEET-II, subject to seeking an option from the said candidates to give up their candidature for NEET-I”
The order would imply that all government colleges, deemed universities and private medical colleges would also be covered by NEET and those examinations which have already taken place or are slated to be conducted separately, stand scrapped.
