Supreme Court upholds validity of NEET for Ayush courses
A bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and Deepak Gupta upheld the validity of the notifications issued by the Central Council of Indian Medicine, which had mandated minimum qualifying marks in NEET for admission to an undergraduate course in Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha streams and postgraduate courses in Ayurveda. Lack of minimum standards of education in Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy streams will lead to half-baked doctors and prescribing a National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to courses in these streams cannot be faulted, the Supreme Court ruled.“Doctors who are qualified in Ayurvedic, Unani and Homeopathy streams also treat patients and the lack of minimum standards of education would result in half-baked doctors being turned out of professional colleges” the court observed.
The notifications were issued in December 2018 after the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Homoeopathy instructed all the state governments, Union territories, and universities to admit students in AYUSH undergraduate courses for the academic year 2018-2019 only on the basis of merit list of the NEET.