The UOI cannot impose NEET qualifications for AYUSH admissions without legislative backing, as executive actions cannot override statutory regulations.

ORDER :

1. Since the above titled writ petitions filed by the private universities, involve common issues based on similar facts, therefore, they are being decided by this common order. However, for brevity, the facts, as narrated in SBCWP No.16431/2018 are taken into consideration.

2. The facts in brief are that the petitioners are self financed Homeopathy colleges and are running various courses in Homeopathy including post graduation courses in Homeopathy. The respondent No.3 had issued NEET, BAMS, BUMS, BHMS, BNYS Counselling 2018 Information Booklet, which provides information about centralized admission to all Government and Private Ayurved / Unani / Homeopathy / Naturopathy and Yoga Colleges for academic session 2018-19 in Bachelor courses of Ayurvedic, Unani, Homeopathy, Naturopathy & Yoga by the BAMS / BUMS/ BHMS / BNYS Admission Board NEET-2018 constituted by the State Government.

2.1 The respondent No.3 later issued programme of counselling on 21.09.2018 for the academic year 2018-19 for admission in Bachelor course of Ayurvedic, Unani, Homeopathy, Yoga and Naturopathy which was followed by another notice dated 03.10.2018, whereby online applications were invited for filling up of NRI seats for the academic session 2018-19. A notice for second round of counselling was issued on 09.10.2018 for filling up of vacant seats for the academic session 2018-19.

2.2 The petitioners, during the said counselling process, came to know that NRI quota seats were not filled and the respondent No.3 was in the process of filling those unfilled seats with general category candidates. The petitioners were later informed that the said procedure is being adopted based on the directions issued by the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (‘AYUSH’), but, the respondent No.3 could only allot 267 students out of 745 students in Bachelor of Homeopathy Medicine and Surgery (‘BHMS’) course. The reason for not filling up of the vacant seats was only because of wrong application of eligibility criteria of NEET qualification.

2.3 The grievance raised in the writ petition is with regard to series of communications issued by the Government of India, Ministry of AYUSH on various occasions which were addressed to all the State Authorities intimating that admissions in AYUSH undergraduate courses are to be given based on the merit list of NEET only from the academic year 2018-2019. The said communications were sent on 23.01.2017, 26.04.2017, 12.02.2018, 21.02.2018, 14.05.2018, 05.06.2018, 11.06.2018 and 15.06.2018. Consequently, the State Government issued communications dated 09.08.2018 and 12.10.2018 to NEET 2018 Counseling Board to fill up the vacant seats of NRI quota. Thus, the aforementioned notice dated 03.10.2018 came to be published by the Counseling Board whereby online applications were sought to fill the NRI vacant seats so also it was indicated that the merit list of NEET would be considered for the same. By way of the present writ petition, the petitioner has laid challenge to the aforementioned communications sent by the Government of India, Ministry of AYUSH to the State authorities so also the subsequent communications sent by the State Government to the Counseling Board. Further, the communication dated 21.09.2018 sent by Government of India, Ministry of AYUSH to all State Authorities has been challenged whereby the qualification of AIPGET 2018 was mandated to participate in AYUSH PG Courses for the academic year 2018-201