Admission to AYUSH Courses through NEET
NEET Compulsory for Admission to AYUSH Courses – The State of Punjab and Haryana recently announced the criterion of clearing the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to a bachelor’s degree in AYUSH courses.
AYUSH is the abbreviation of the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy and is an Indian government body dealing with R&D in these departments.
The High court further announced the dismissal of all the candidates, from the BAMS (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery), BUMS (Bachelor of Unani Medicine and Surgery) and BHMS (Bachelor of Homeopathic Medicine and Surgery) courses in the ongoing academic session, who did not clear the NEET.
The Division bench quoted that NEET is a mandatory criterion for getting admissions in the AYUSH bachelor’s courses, and all the admissions granted against this would be considered illegal and void and cannot continue. They added that the authorities can continue only those candidates who have gained admissions based on appearance and passing in NEET.
NEET Requirement in 2018
In 2018, the petitioners stated that the order was not in terms of the Indian Medical Central Council Act, 1970. They belonged from a few private Ayurvedic colleges in the two states and were against the order passed by the division bench of Chief Justice Ravi Shanker Jha and Justice Rajiv Sharma. The petitioners desired the admissions to BUMS and BAMS be granted based on the marks obtained in 10+2 examinations by the candidates or entrance tests of different states, but not NEET.
They pleaded that the order should not be exercised for the 2019-20 session since the last day for applying to NEET was 30th November 2018, a week prior to the amendment of the regulation on 7th December 2018. The candidates who wished to apply to BHMS, BAMS and BUMS courses were ignorant of the new regulation and didn’t appear for NEET.
The CCIM – Central Council of Indian Medicine and CCH – Central Council Of Homeopathy issued letters based on what the Punjab and Haryana council submitted that the states were known to the new requirement of taking NEET for admissions since 2018 and had made the news public too.
The fact that the new regulation had been implemented by both the states in 2018 and the colleges had been informed of the same, was submitted.
It was submitted by the central govt.’s counsel that the Centre can frame regulations by the 7th Schedule stated in the Constitution. The fact that 797060 candidates qualified against 37906 seats for AYUSH in that session, was brought to the high court.
After hearing all the petitions and facts, the High Court sustained the States’ decision of making NEET mandatory for AYUSH courses admissions.
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