Apex Court Allows Declaration Of Results For AYUSH Students Admitted Without NEET

The Supreme Court has allowed the declaration of results for undergraduate AYUSH students who were admitted without appearing for the NEET UG-2019 examination, despite holding that their admissions were improper.

The Bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K. Vinod Chandran ruled that while the concerned colleges should not have granted admission to students who had not qualified for NEET, withholding their examination results or degrees at this stage would cause undue hardship since they have already completed their courses.

"It is true that admission to candidates who had not appeared in the NEET examination could not have been given by the college, yet as of now these students have completed their course, and to withhold the exam results or their degree will cause immense hardship to them," the Court said. 

Facts of the Case

The case originated when students, who gained admission to AYUSH undergraduate courses without taking NEET UG-2019, challenged the cancellation of their admissions. They argued that they were unaware of the NEET requirement due to insufficient notice.

A Single Judge of the High Court had earlier allowed their admission, citing inadequate publicity regarding the NEET mandate for AYUSH courses.

However, the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court set aside this ruling, observing that the Union of India had published a notice in newspapers on November 7, 2018, informing candidates that NEET qualification was mandatory for AYUSH admissions. The Division Bench found that other students had complied with this requirement and rejected the petitioners’ claims of inadequate notice.

Subsequently, the affected students approached the Supreme Court, which had earlier permitted them to take their first-semester examinations while withholding their results until further orders.

Court's Order

With the order dated February 12, the Court has vacated its previous stay order dated April 19, 2021, and directed that the students' results be released. The Court concluded that while the admissions were legally flawed, the students had completed their courses, making it unreasonable to withhold their results or degrees.

Accordingly, the Special Leave Petition was disposed of, providing relief to the petitioning students.

Cause Title: Ebtesham Khatoon v. Union of India [Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s). 6658/2021]

Appearance:-

Petitioner: Advocates Indranil Ghosh, Plazer Moktan, Satya Mitra (AOR) 

Respondent: ASG S.D Sanjay, Advocates Gurmeet Singh Makker (AOR), Akshay Amritanshu, Siddhant Kohli, Aaditya Dixit, Sweksha, Pankhuri Shrivastava, Neelam Sharma (AOR), Alekshendra Sharma, Aditya Kumar, Astha Sharma (AOR), Soumitra G. Chaudhuri, Chanchal Kumar Ganguli (AOR), Ranjan Mukherjee, Santanu Das, Anindo Mukherjee,  Rameshwar Prasad Goyal (AOR), Chandra Bhushan Prasad (AOR), Bikas Kar Gupta, Azim H. Laskar, Md. Sarfaraz, Harsh Verma, Debanjan Mandal, Kunal Mimani (AOR), Tanish Arora

Click here to read/download the Order