NEW DELHI: Candidates from the general category older than 25 years and those from the reserved category above 30 will not be able to appear in NEET this year as the Supreme Court refused on Friday to interfere with the CBSE’s decision to fix the upper age limit for the entrance test for admission to undergraduate medical and dental courses.
A batch of ten students from different states had challenged the validity of the CBSE’s decision to fix the limit, contending that there is no age restriction for appearing at entrance examinations of All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research.
Advocate Amit Kumar, appearing for the students, contended that the decision was illegal and arbitrary and pleaded the court to pave the way for the petitioners to take NEET (National Eligibility and Entrance Test).
“In almost all developed countries such as the US, Canada, UK and most of the EU, Australia, there is no upper-age limit for studying medicine if the student is otherwise competent to undertake the courses. Therefore, there is no rationale as to why a candidate above the age of 25 years is not competent to take medicine course in India,” the petition said.
The students also said the SC had recently stayed Bar Council of India regulations for prescribing an age cap for admission to law courses to 20 years (for integrated course) and 30 years (for 3-year course) on the ground that there was no rationale behind fixing the limit. A bench of Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao, however, refused to entertain the petition.
