Supreme Court vide its orders dated 28th April and 9th May 2016 in WP No. 261/2016 directed that NEET shall come into effect immediately. However some State Governments indicated that it would be in the larger interest of the students’ community across the country to hold NEET for undergraduate admission from the year 2017-18 onward instead of 2016-17. The points highlighted by the state Governments are-
i. State Level examinations for admissions have already been conducted and students will have to appear for a second examination;
ii. State examinations are also conducted in regional languages. It is not appropriate to make all students to take examination in Hindi and English, particularly when only two months are left for NEET Phase-II examination; and
iii. The syllabi for the state level examinations are different from the AIIPMT, which is going to be the basis for NEET Phase-II examination.
Accordingly, the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Ordinance, 2016 and the Dentists (Amendment) Ordinance, 2016 was promulgated on 24th May 2016 to amend the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 and Dentists Act, 1948 respectively to provide for a Uniform Entrance Examination for Undergraduate and Post Graduate admissions with the option to the States to fill up the Under Graduate seats for 2016-17 in respect to State Quota seats as per existing arrangement or by adopting NEET. This exception does not apply to management quota seats of private medical colleges who shall fill up the Under Graduate seats only on the basis of NEET.
The Uniform Entrance Examination seeks to curb malpractices in medical admissions.