The court upheld the minimum age requirement of 17 years for medical entrance exams as reasonable and not arbitrary, emphasizing the expertise of regulatory bodies in setting educational standards.

JUDGMENT

D.N. Patel, Chief Justice (Oral)

Proceedings have been conducted through video conferencing.

CM APPL. 26386/2021 (Exemption)

Allowed, subject to all just exceptions.

Application is disposed of.

W.P.(C) 8520/2021 & CM APPL. 26385/2021 (Stay)

1. Present writ petition has been preferred seeking the following reliefs:

"a) Direct NTA/Respondents to allow/permit Petitioner who is 13 months underage for entrance test (NEET-2021) conducted by NTA,

b) Direct NTA/Respondents to amend impugned regulation concerned with minimum age criteria of 17 years as on December 2021 for first year UG medical course for students appearing in entrance test (NEET-2021) by replacing with 15 years similar to JEE-2021 for UG Engineering courses, as it is ultra vires to Indian Medical Council Act 1956.

c) pass such other order or further orders as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case."

2. Petitioner herein passed his matriculation examination in 2019 with 90.2% marks from school recognised by the CBSE and 12th Class examination in 2021 with 89% marks being in the science stream. His date of birth as per the record is 26th January, 2006. By way of the present writ petition, Petitioner seeks a direction to the Respondents to allow the Petitioner to appear in the entrance test (NEET-2021) conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA) and also challenges "Medical Council of India Regulations on Graduate Medical Education, 1997", as amended upto May, 2018, more particularly Regulation 4(1) thereof (hereinafter referred to as "Regulations"). For ready reference, Regulation 4(1) reads as under:

"4. Admission to the Medical Course-Eligibility Criteria: No candidate shall be allowed to be admitted to the Medical Curriculum proper of first Bachelor or Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery course until he/she has qualified the National Eligibility Entrance Test, and he/she shall not be allowed to appear for the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test until:

(1) He/she shall complete the age of 17 years on or before 31st December of the year of admission to the MBBS Course."

(emphasis supplied)

3. National Testing Agency (NTA) conducts entrance tests for undergraduate programmes for different examinations in different streams. The entrance test in question is the "National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test" (NEET-2021) which is to be conducted by NTA on 12th September, 2021. As per the Petitioner, when he attempted to fill the online application, he was unable to do so as he was ineligible on account of minimum age limit of 17 years on or before 31st December of the year of the admission, being underage by 12 months and 26 days. Petitioner made a representation dated 14th July, 2021 to the concerned authorities to facilitate in filling up of the online forms ignoring the underage issue. This was followed by reminder representations dated 21st July 2021, 22nd July, 2021, 23rd July 2021 and 28th July, 2021, but there was no response, leading to the filing of the present petition.

4. Learned counsel appearing for the Petitioner contends that the Regulation in question was enacted way-back in the year 1997 and has outlived its utility. The present generation of children mature at an earlier age having the advantage of technological advancements and a better environment for development and grooming, both academically and in terms of intelligent quotient. The two decade old regulation deserves to be quashed being unconstitutional in present times where majority of students are ready to go to universities and colleges at the age of 15. Additionally, in terms of the intelligence level and the marks scored by the students, in 1997