The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Medical Council of India to go ahead with its decision to hold a single entrance test each for all MBBS and postgraduate seats in private and government medical colleges from 2011-12.This will save thousands of aspirants from the pain and harassment of appearing in several tests.

However, the common entrance tests will not be applicable to Tamil Nadu as the Madras High Court has stayed the MCI notification of 2010, saying the state had its own law.

MCI’s counsel Amarendra Saran narrated the sequence of events leading to the notification by the SC bench of Justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik allowing the regulator to implement its December 27 notification. Saran, aided by petitioner Simran Jain’s counsel A D N Rao, had pleaded for a single entrance test to spare students from the harassment of appearing in 10-15 entrance tests every year. The CETs will be conducted by a nodal agency to be appointed by MCI in consultation with the Union government.

MCI had clarified that the state quota would remain intact as an entrance test would draw up a national merit list as well as statewise ranking list for general category, SC/ST and OBC and physically-challenged persons.

The MCI proposal said, “In order to be eligible for admissions to MBBS courses for a particular academic year, it shall be necessary for a candidate to obtain a minimum of 50% marks in each paper of the test.”

This year onwards, there will be a single exam each for MBBS and MD courses offered by all 271 medical colleges, 138 run by governments and 133 under private management. All these colleges offer over 31,000 seats for MBBS courses and another 11,000 seats for PG degrees.

Source : The Times of India