By TCN News,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Union government, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Health, Central Board of Secondary Education, Medical Council of India etc. on exclusion of Urdu as a medium of examination for admission to MBBS/BDS and allied medical courses through National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)-2013.
A Division Bench of 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.
Senior advocate Anoop George Chaudhari, assisted by Shakil Ahmad Syed, Mohd. Parvez Dabas and Shuaibuddin, 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.”
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. In view of sensitivity involved when the issue came to our information we asked our advocates to immediately move to the Supreme Court. He is optimistic that the decision would come in his favour.
