Relief for AYUSH students: Uttarakhand High Court regularises 2019-20 admissions made without NEET counselling

The colleges were seeking permission for their students to participate in professional examinations. On the other hand, the students had sought a mandamus to compel the university to declare their final examination results and allow them to complete their degrees.

Case of AYUSH students

The central issue before the Uttarakhand High Court was whether admission made by private colleges for the 2019-20 academic session, which bypassed the mandatory National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET)-based counselling process, could be deemed valid.

These admissions were typically made under the protection of various interim orders passed by the high court while the validity of the new AYUSH regularisation was being challenged.

There are two sets of writ petitions before the Uttarakhand High Court. The one is by the individual colleges, where the colleges have either challenged the notification of January 2019 issued by the Government of India, Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) providing that all admissions in AYUSH courses shall mandatorily be made through the merit list of NEET (UG)-2019, in view of the amendments made in the regulations by the Central Council of Indian Medicine with the previous sanction of the Central Government by Notification dated December 7, 2018, or have sought a mandamus to permit such students to appear in the professional examinations in different years.

The other set of petitions is by the students seeking a mandamus to the respondents to declare their results of the final examination of the BAMS course, and/or to permit them to appear in a different professional course examinations, thereby, enabling them to complete their BAMS course, and/or to declare their results and issue marksheets to them and/or to quash the order passed by the university cancelling their temporary registration for the course.

The colleges initially challenged the 2018 and 2019 notifications mandating NEET for AYUSH courses; the Supreme Court eventually upheld these regulations in Union of India v Federation of Self-Financed Ayurvedic Colleges, Punjab and others.

However, the apex court granted a one-time relaxation for students already admitted before October 15, 2019, due to the unique circumstances and the large number of vacant seats.

Court’s findings

• The challenge to the amendment made in the regulations and the notification issued by the Centre for making admissions through the process of counselling failed.
• The students admitted on the strength of interim orders on or before October 15, 2019, are entitled to a declaration of their results and/or to appear in any back paper examination. The Uttarakhand High Court ordered accordingly.
• In some of the cases, counter-affidavits have been filed by the university, in which it has not been denied that the students were admitted by the colleges before October 15, 2019, the last date prescribed in this behalf, based on the interim orders passed in favour of the colleges in different writ petitions.
• It is also not disputed that all four students of the college, in respect of whom the interim order was passed, were admitted before the last date of admission, i.e. October 15, 2019.
• The students have appeared in professional examinations held during these years on the strength of the interim order, the Uttarakhand High Court noted.
• In such circumstances, we are not inclined to differentiate the cases of said students from those of other students of the same academic year and hold that they would also be entitled to the benefit of one-time relaxation granted by the Supreme Court.