COVID: Telangana High Court Directs Medical Council To Consider Pleas Of Aspirants Seeking Exemption From Appearing In NEET 2021

The Telangana High Court on Monday directed the Medical Council of India to consider as representation the pleas of certain overseas Indian citizens, seeking exemption from appearing for NEET examination scheduled on September 12.

Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili issued the order in a writ plea filed by one Sulaiman Javed seeking a one-year exemption from NEET or for allowing him to appear online.

As per the Regulations, one has to qualify in the NEET examination for taking admission in Foreign University/Institute for pursuing foreign medical qualifications.

Owing to the pandemic situation, vide public notice dated 04.09.2020 it was clarified that any Indian Citizen/Overseas Citizen of India intending to pursue Primary Medical Qualification from academic session commencing from August 2020 onwards was required to qualify NEET either in 2020 or 2021. 

However, this exemption was granted as a one-time measure for the academic year 2020-21 only.

The petitioner prayed that this exemption benefit given in 2020-21 may be extended to the petitioner for the present academic year given the travel restrictions and that he will appear for NEET 2022. 

Advocate Sagarika K appearing for the petitioner argued that the travel ban imposed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia made it impractical for the petitioner to travel to Dubai and he will be put to irreparable loss if not exempted.

Standing Counsel Poojitha appearing for the Medical Council of India contended that the sanctity of exams would be lost if conducted online and vehemently refused to exempt the petitioner from appearing for the exam in view of the pandemic.

It was also submitted that at present the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had imposed travel quarantine restrictions and there was no travel ban and thus the petitioner could always travel to Dubai for taking up the examination for the present academic year.

Accordingly, it was argued that there were no merits in the writ petition and the same is liable to be dismissed.

However, since once the respondent had already exempted candidates from taking NEET for the academic year 2020-2021, therefore the Court said it can consider the case of the petitioners and pass appropriate orders in accordance with law.

The respondent has thus been directed to treat the writ petitions as representations and act upon them.  

The Court went on to direct the Medical Council of India to consider the case of the petitioners within 3 days and if necessary, grant an exemption, as it was done for the last academic year.

Case Title: Mohammed Sulaiman Javed v. Union of India

Click here to read Order