The NEET Results 2017 saga refuses to die down. After much debate and discussion, the Centre has asked the Madras High Court to lift the stay on the results. For this, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has filed an affidavit at the Madras High Court, urging it to lift the stay put in place on May 24.
The interim order passed on May 24 put a stay on NEET results after a petition had challenged the different sets of question papers for English and other vernacular languages.
Defending the Central Board of Secondary Education's decision to give out separate sets of question papers, the ministry's under secretary A. Amit Biswas refuted the claims that the English question papers were tougher than those in vernacular languages.
"CBSE had conducted NEET for the academic year 2013-14. CBSE was also conducting All India Pre Medical Test (AIPMT) for admission in 15% MBBS/BDS seats in government medical/dental colleges throughout the country except for the States of Andhra Pradesh/Telangana and Jammu and Kashmir," The Hindu quoted Biswas as saying.
"Some of the State governments were also using the AIPMT merit list for making admission to medical/dental courses in their States from the academic year 2014-15."
He also explained that CBSE did not decide to conduct exams in English and vernacular languages in haste, but had, in fact, discussed the idea with governments of the state as well as union territories. Also, Kannada and Odia was included at the request of the state governments, when CBSE intended to conduct the exams only in English and vernacular languages like Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.
Meanwhile, it is now being said that students who appeared for NEET exams this year can expect the results sometime after June 13. The results were earlier supposed to be declared on June 8, but CBSE said that the results could not be declared so early as the board would need about 15 days to declare the results after the court lifts the stay. It also said that the stay needs to be lifted soon as the future of about 11.38 lakh students is currently hanging by a thread.
"The delay in declaring results due to the interim order is already beyond permissible limit. The CBSE will require 15 days to declare the result if it is permitted to do so," the Times of India quoted the CBSE counsel as saying.
The NEET exams were held on May 7 in 10 languages.
