Supreme Court issued a notice to include Urdu in NEET 2013

The Supreme Court issued a notice to the Central Government, the Ministry of Human Resource Department, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Medical Council of India (MCI) etc. on exclusion of Urdu as a medium of examination in National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to MBBS/BDS and allied medical courses.

Earlier, NEET 2013 planned to conduct in 6 regional languages, which are Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Telugu and Assamese in addition to that Hindi and English.

A Division Bench of Justices Justice A.K. Patnaik and Justice S.J. Mukhopadhyay asked the respondents to file their replies within a week.

Jamiat Ulama-i Hind and other petitioner Ansari Mahin Fatema, a girl aspirant hailed from Beed Maharashtra in their petition, urged the court to issue a direction, in the interest of thousands of Urdu medium students, to respondents to include Urdu as medium of examination like other eight national and regional languages were included.

Anoop George Chaudhari Sr. Adv. assisted by Shakil Ahmad Syed, Mohd. Parvez Dabas and Shuaibuddin advocates appearing in the aforesaid case argued that the respondents' decision of conducting the NEET in English, Hindi and other 6 regional languages excluding Urdu language is discriminatory, arbitrary, unreasonable and violative of Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution.

Majority of the states have accepted the proposal but few states have expressed apprehensions about the proposed NEET which pertained syllabus, medium of test, reservation policy etc. Most of the apprehensions have been addressed. The MCIs regulations on NEET clearly indicate that the prevailling reservation policy of states would not be disturbed.

They further maintained that even Marathi language was included even though there is not a single Marathi Medium Science Jr. college all over Maharashtra, whereas, there are more than 7800 Urdu medium students and the number of junior colleges in which the medium of instruction is Urdu is as high as 227 in the state.

The total number of such junior colleges in the entire state is thus much higher. Whereas Marathi medium students are only about 350.

Referring to the petitioner student, they said he Petitioner is an Urdu medium student of intermediate/XIIth and could not fill up forms of NEET an entrance test mandatory for admission to medical courses due to exclusion of the Urdu language from medium of question papers.

In petition it was also asserted that The Maharashtra Government and other State Govt. prior to 2013 conducted entrance test for medical courses in regional languages including Urdu. And on 03.12.2012 Govt. of Maharashtra issued notification that it is mandatory to appear in NEET for admission to medical courses and State Govt. will not conduct any test for admission to MBBS and 12 other medical courses.

The CBSE issued notification regarding admission to the medical courses MBBS, BDS etc. making provision that candidates who have passed XII and equivalent qualifying exam from State Board Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujrat, Maharashtra, Tamil nadu and west Bengal under state quota can opt for Question paper in regional languages i.e. Telugu, Assamese, Gujrati, Marathi, Tamil and Bengali. The CBSE excluded the Urdu language from the medium of language of question papers.

Maulan Mahmood Madani general secretary Jamiat Ulama -i-Hind who is providing finance for fighting the case said this issue is not limited to Urdu students aspiring to compete in the NEET exam but its effect will extent to future of thousands of Urdu medium colleges.