On Thursday, Supreme Court instructed the Center to conduct the NEET exam in Urdu from the academic year 2018-19 onward but ruled out any possibility of having Urdu as one of the language in NEET exam this year.
The bench of Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar directed that NEET exam be held in Urdu from next year after CBSE told Supreme Court that it is extremely difficult to hold NEET in Urdu this year.
"We direct the Union of India to include Urdu as a language in NEET examination from academic session 2018-19 on wards," the bench said in its order. The order came on a petition filed by the Students Islamic Organization (SIO). Any possibility of holding a supplementary exam in Urdu for the current year was also completely ruled out.
At present session the NEET will be conducted in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Telegu, Tamil, Bengal, Oriya and Assamese languages.
Earlier, this year in March, the apex court told the center, Central Board of Secondary Education, Medical Council of India (MCI ) and Dental Council of India (DCI) that they respond to the plea filed by the SIO in the matter of holding NEET exam in URDU this year.
The government on Thursday, responded by saying that the brochure for NEET 2017-18 was issued in January and SIO approached the apex court in the matter related, in February, which made it difficult for the center to introduce Urdu in NEET exam this year.
"In the first hearing we had said that it will be difficult this year and we will do it from next year", Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar told the court.