Bombay HC refuses urgent relief to BHMS students lacking NEET score criteria

A division bench of Justices Gautam S Patel and Neela K Gokhale was on July 3 hearing a plea by the association, seeking permission for some students in petitioner’s various colleges to appear for first to fourth year examinations in BHMS course, while a proposal of May 30 is pending consideration by the AYUSH Ministry.

“We do not see how the petitioner has any locus standi or any legally or constitutionally enforceable right to begin with. The students for whom the relief is sought have not met the threshold qualifying criteria in the NEET. Individual students came to court and reliefs were refused,” the court responded.

The bench also noted that the matter went to the Supreme Court, which disposed of the Special Leave Petition on May 16. The SC had left it to the AYUSH Ministry to take a final decision. The top court had said the percentile requirement of 2020 (2019-2020) was also relaxed and the petitioners shall be entitled to continue with the course, provided the marks obtained by them come within the percentile range fixed by the authority and they otherwise fulfil the eligibility criteria.

The top court had granted liberty to the petitioners and respective colleges to make substantive representations before the appropriate authority of the central government and if such representations are made within two weeks from the date of order, then decision on the same was asked to be taken expeditiously.

Advocates Vishal Kanade and Suryajeet P Chavan for the association submitted that due to the liberty granted to colleges by SC, they have locus standi and present writ plea is maintainable.

“We disagree. That liberty by the Supreme Court was only to make a representation. It does not mean that the Supreme Court decided on the question of the Petitioner Association’s locus,” the bench said.

The association also submitted that since the students in question have appeared for one examination they should be permitted to appear for the rest.

“There is no substance to this. In fact, there is no end to this. Before long, on the strength of these orders (based on misplaced sympathy and nothing else, and wrongly so based in our view), the student will then claim to be entitled to graduate, and then to be entitled to practise homoeopathy and to be enrolled as homoeopathic practitioners. All this will entirely elude the fact that they have not met the NEET threshold passing criteria; and, more importantly, that they could not have been granted admission in the first place by the colleges that are part of the petitioner association,” the bench raised concerns.

The court held, “We have no hesitation in refusing ad-interim relief. The AYUSH Ministry is requested to take up the representation at its earliest convenience but we are setting no deadline for this, because we cannot. We are expressing no opinion on the merits of the representation.”