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Union of India v. Federation of Self-Financed Ayurvedic Colleges Punjab

Civil Appeal · 2020 INSC 220Decided 20 Feb 2020
Civil Appeal No. 603 of 2020
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice Deepak Gupta

Background

The Central Council of Indian Medicine made NEET (the common entrance test otherwise used for MBBS/BDS admissions) compulsory, with a minimum qualifying percentile, for admission to Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy undergraduate and postgraduate courses starting in 2019-20. Several colleges and students challenged this as beyond the Council's law-making powers, while numerous students in Punjab had already been admitted without meeting the NEET cutoff, relying on interim orders passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court while the case was pending.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that although the specific clauses relied upon did not directly authorize a common entrance exam, the Council's general statutory power to prescribe "minimum standards of education" was broad enough to cover introducing such a test, so the regulations mandating NEET were valid. However, recognizing that a large number of students had already been admitted in good-faith reliance on the High Court's interim orders before the admission deadlines, the Court permitted those specific admissions to stand as a one-time exception, while expressly stating that this relief would not be treated as a precedent for future years.

Lesson Learnt

Courts can uphold a new educational entrance requirement as lawful while still protecting students who were admitted in good faith under an earlier court order, but such protection is granted as a one-off exception tied to the specific facts, not a rule future applicants can rely on.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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