SC shuts doors on Sibal’s dream test

Faced with stiff opposition from the Health Ministry, Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal’s only hope to get his dream proposal of holding a common medical and engineering entrance test implemented through the Supreme Court ended on Friday.

A Bench of Justices RV Raveendran and AK Pattnaik called off monitoring of an application filed by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), where the Human Resource Development Ministry proposed a joint entrance test for medical and engineering aspirants to avoid hassles of writing a series of entrance tests, many of which clashed with each other.

With the two Ministries refusing to bury their differences for over two years, an anguished Bench noted, “Counsel for Health Ministry submits there are certain differences on the issue of holding common examination for medical and engineering colleges. Having regard to the issue involved, we feel it is not something that can be settled in court in an application filed in a disposed of matter.”

Advocate for CBSE, still confident to break the ice, prayed for two weeks time to resolve the deadlock. But the Bench remarked, “The Centre is not agreeable to your suggestion.” The CBSE, which holds both the all-India pre medical and pre dental test (AIPMT) and all-India engineering entrance exam (AIEEE) argued throughout that the suggestion was acceptable to both the Ministries. It also cited a meeting held on June 7, 2010 where all concerned parties met and deliberated on the issue.

However, with nearly two years of persuasion and coercion by the court yielding no result, the Bench was of the view that a solution to the problem could be found within the Government itself without the court monitoring the same.

While the AIPMT fills up only 15 per cent Central quota seats in MBBS/BDS courses in government medical and dental colleges, the engineering colleges had a higher stake in this proposal as the entire merit list for admission to Government engineering colleges is drawn from AIEEE results.

The CBSE in its application had said, “Members of the committee had desired that both the AIPMT and AIEEE, which are conducted by CBSE, may be integrated keeping in view the interest of the candidates to enable them to get admission in medical/dental and engineering through a single entrance examination.”

But the Health Ministry opposed to this suggestion citing possibility of a “lateral overlap” as there are several students who take mathematics and biology, becoming eligible to appear in both AIPMT and AIEEE.

“There could be a situation where a student might figure in merit lists for both medical and engineering streams and could sit on one of the seats while retaining the seat on the other list waiting for a better option thus depriving other deserving candidates,” the Health Ministry argued.