Review plea to seek time till 2018 for NEET

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has given assurances that students from the state will not suffer by the implementation of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) that was made mandatory for medicine studies by the Supreme Court recently.

He said the state would ask SC to allow Maharashtra to implement NEET from 2018 in its review petition that would be filed on Monday.

The issue has caused a huge furore among the 4.5 lakh students who will be appearing for the state conducted MH-CET on May 5 and nearly 60,000 students who will be appearing for the All India Pre-Medical Test which has been re-christened as phase I of NEET to be held on May 1. Mr Fadnavis said the students’ interests were a priority.

“The state will ask the SC to allow Maharashtra to start conducting NEET from 2018 through the review petition. Many other states will also join us in this demand,” said Mr Fadnavis.

On Saturday evening, a high-level meeting headed by medical education minister Vinod Tawde was held wherein the main thrust of the review petition were discussed.

Sources said that the meeting concluded that the petition would ask for a review in light of the article 32 (1) of the Constitution of India and request the SC to consider its order again.