Petition, in the Supreme Court, was filed challenging the Delhi high court’s verdict of upholding the upper limit of age of 30 years for candidates belonging to SC/ST/OBC and 25 years for General category candidates for appearing in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).
Appeal was presented by Tribhvan Singh from Rajasthan, aged 27, questioning the relation between competencies, caliber and merit of candidates want to appear in medical courses and their age.
The petition also questioned the authority of Medical Council of India to frame such regulations and whether placing such restriction would either violate the fundamental right, Article19(1)(g), of the constitution of India.
The petition was raised in the contradiction of the judgment held, on May 11, by Delhi High court, that candidates appearing for medical courses will be restricted after age limit of 25, for general category, age 30 for reserved category including ST, SC or OBC, considering the limited number of seats and large number of applicants in India including the candidate from open school are also allowed to take NEET.
The high court stated “need to put the upper age limit was necessary as there are approximately 61,000 seats for MBBS course in government and private medical colleges in the country. There has to be a level playing field for selection amongst lakhs of candidates who appear every year (in 2017, about 11 lakh candidates had appeared). It is obvious that a candidate who is 17 or 18 years of age will find it difficult to compete with a candidate who is above 26/31 years of age and has been studying for last 7 to 10 years or even more only to get admission to an MBBS course”.