The Madras High Court hit out at the Central government on Thursday, saying that it was unacceptable for the Centre to refuse to endorse Tamil Nadu’s draft ordinance on NEET.

The draft ordinance had sought a one-year exemption from NEET for medical colleges in the state.  

Justice N Kirubakaran also criticised the Central Government for handing over the task of conducting NEET to the CBSE, rather than a neutral agency. It is obvious that the CBSE would stick to its own exam patterns, thus favouring students who had studied under that board.

But the TN government was not spared either, as Justice Kirubakaran flayed it for failing to review the school education syllabus in the last 10 years. He noted that only 9% of students from Tamil Nadu had cleared the NEET examination, and held the government responsible for the poor performance.

Justice Kirubakaran made these statements while hearing a petition filed by a medical aspirant, Kiruthika hailing from Udumalapet in Tirupur. Kiruthika had obtained 1184 marks out of 1,200 in the Class XII examination, but could not get through the NEET. She wanted the court to allow her to attend the medical counselling.

The court, however, said that it could not intervene in the issue to allow Kiruthika to attend counselling because the NEET issue was being heard by Supreme Court.

The court also said that the state government should provide counselling to ensure that medical aspirants or their families do not resort to extreme steps like suicide due to disappointment.

On Tuesday, the Central government  had refused to endorse Tamil Nadu’s draft ordinance, claiming that it could not stand up to legal scrutiny.  Following this,  the Supreme Court  had ordered the state to begin medical admissions based on NEET by September 4.