The Madras High Court on Tuesday, June 29 posed a series of questions to the Tamil Nadu government and ordered it to respond within a week with regards to a plea seeking to quash the state government order to form a committee to study the impact of NEET. The High Court said that the state government should have received permission from the Supreme Court to set up a committee and if not should have left the exercise.
The Tamil Nadu government had set up a high-level committee, headed by, retired judge of Madras High Court, Justice AK Rajan, to study the impact of NEET on students from socially disadvantaged sections. The abolition of NEET was a poll promise made by the DMK.
The Madras HC, on Tuesday, was hearing a PIL moved by BJP State Secretary K Nagarajan who sought the court to quash the Tamil Nadu government order to constitute a committee headed by Justice AK Rajan to study the impact of NEET.
The case came up before the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy and the bench raised a series of questions. The bench asked, "Have you obtained the permission of the Supreme Court (which had upheld the NEET). Would it not amount to violation of the ruling of the apex court?”
The Advocate General R Shanmugasundaram appearing for the Tamil Nadu government informed the judges that the committee was set up as a policy decision of the state government as part of their poll promise and to protect the interest of socially advantaged students. However, the bench said that the decision is contrary to the Supreme Court order and hence cannot be permitted.
The Madras High Court then ordered the state and Union government to submit notices within a week.
The Supreme Court on August 22, 2017, declared that Tamil Nadu medical colleges should only use NEET to admit students. The Court also ordered the then state government to immediately start the admission process. The order pertained to the case moved by the Tamil Nadu government seeking exemption from NEET.
(With PTI inputs)