IndiaTomorrow.net,

New Delhi, April 13: In a big success for the Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO), the Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Central government and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to include Urdu as a medium of language in NEET 2018-19 if it was not possible from this year.

According to LiveLaw.in, "The process for 2017 NEET exam has already started and it is difficult to put the clock back and no state has made such a demand this year," the Central government had told the apex court.

The apex court had earlier issued notice to the Centre, Medical Council of India, Dental Council and CBSE on a petition filed by the SIO to include Urdu as one of the languages in which students can respond to questions in the NEET exam.

Till now apart from English and Hindi, the other languages in which the exam is permitted are Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada.

SIO contented that Urdu stands at number six among the languages spoken in India and it is also listed in Schedule VIII of the Indian Constitution. The organization further said that a large number of students study science in Urdu language and NCERT too prints its textbooks in Urdu.