Hon’ble Mr. Rajan Roy, J.—Heard Shri S.K.kalia, S.C. Misra and Sri Jaideep Narain Mathur Learned senior Advocate alongwith Sri Sandeep Dixit Learned Avocate for the petitioners and Dr L.P. Misra alongwith Sri Sanjay Bhasin, Sri Prafull Tewari for the state, Sri S.B.Pandey for the Union of India and Sri Gyanendra Srivastava for the Medical council of India.

2. All these writ petitions involve similar questions of fact and law, therefore, they have been heard together and are being decided by a common judgment.

3. For convenience writ petition No. 20575 (MB) of 2016 has been treated as the leading writ petition.

Petitioner of this writ petition is an Association of Un-aided Medical Colleges. The petitioners in other writ petitions are universities/colleges imparting education in medical courses such as MBBS etc., some of which claim to be minority institutions.

Factual Background of the case

4. The facts leading to this writ petition are as follows :

A common entrance test is held by the Medical Council of India under Regulation 5(5) of the Regulations known as Regulations on Graduate Medical Education, 1997 as amended vide Notification dated 21.12.2010, the vires of which is pending adjudication before the Supreme Court. This test is known as National Eligibility-cum-Entrance test (for short ‘NEET’). It is part of the single window procedure for admission as envisaged in T.M.A. Pai Foundation and others v. State of Karnataka and others, (2002) 8 SCC 481; P.A. Inamdar and others v. State of Maharashtra and others, (2005) 6 SCC 537. It is applicable to Government as well as Private (aided and unaided) institutions, including minority institutions. It is a centralized test. Based on this test an All India Eligibility-cum-Merit list is prepared. Based on such list firstly, counselling is held for admissions to All India quota, in which the private institutions do no participate. On its completion, counselling is held for State seats. In such counselling the students are called on the basis of their ranking in the NEET list to choose the institution in which they want to take admission for MBBS/BDS first year course, as the case may be. The highest in rank is called to exercise his option first. On such option being exercised the seat and the institution opted for, is locked and is not available for the subsequent candidates in the said counselling. The option/choice is exercised so on and so forth by the students as per their ranking in the NEET list which reflects their merit in the NEET test, accordingly, till the seats are exhausted.

5. Such counselling also entails the verification of original testimonials of the students, their identification based on photograph and Bio-metric data collected by MCI or its agency which conducts NEET. In the present case such data has been provided to the State of U.P. and not to any private institution.

6. The Notification dated 21.12.2010 introducing NEET had earlier been declared ultra vires the Constitution and the Medical Council Act, 1956, by the Supreme Court in Christian Medical College Vellore and others v. Union of India, (2014) 2 SCC 305, but, on a petition being filed for review of the said judgment, the same was recalled on 9.5.2016 and the petitions were restored for a decision afresh, thereby reviving the aforesaid notification as also NEET for Academic Year 2016-17.

7. In the meantime AIPMET and CPMET 2016 had already been held in some States, which stood nullified by the aforesaid developments, consequently the candidates were required to re-appear in NEET 2016 and those who could not for them the date was extended for such appearance in the test held in July, 2016. In the meantime, on 25.4.2016 an Ordinance bearing No. 4 of 2016 was issued amending the Regulations of 1997 and providing an option to the States to opt out of NEET and hold their own tests for the academ