IMPHAL, September 14: Extending solidarity to the case filed before the Supreme Court of India in the aftermath of the state government’s decision of cancelling the Health Directorate conducted entrance test for admission to MBBS/BDS for the current academic year, several candidates have decided to join in the case as petitioners to push up for an early settlement of the case.
Notably, the Director of Health Services, Manipur Dr A Bijoy had notified that the entrance test for admission to MBBS/BDS courses will be held on June 9. However, the state cabinet on June 6 just three days before the slated test declared that the test would not be held and that the candidates for admission to MBBS/BDS course would be selected from the merit list of the common entrance test NEET-UG conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
Following the decision of the state cabinet, the Director again issued an official order on June 7 stating that the entrance test has been cancelled.
Condemning the decision, ten candidates among the 5753 candidates who were already issued admit cards had filed a case before the High Court of Manipur challenging the decision of the government.
However, after hearing of the case, the court dismissed the case on August 26.
Challenging the dismissal order of the court, another petition was filed before the Supreme Court of India on September 4 where the apex court admitted the petition under Case Diary No 28288.
The time for hearing of the case would be known on September 16, according to a source.
However, since the petition filed by only ten candidates could face certain technical problems, several other candidates have decided to join in as petitioners.
The petitioners’ counsel, VK Agarwal had appealed the court to consider the case as ‘’Special Leave Petition’’ (SLP). The Counsel had also prayed before the court by filing a petition on September 13 to start the hearing of the case at the earliest.
On the other hand, the state government had already started counselling since September 7 for selected candidates from the merit list of the NEET-UG common entrance test for admission to MBBS/BDS for the current year.