A plea has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the state government to reserve a minimum 5 percent of seats in all government medical colleges to students who have studied in Tamil medium and passed the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).
A division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and R Hemalatha issued notice to authorities including the Director of Medical Education and posted the PIL for further hearing to February 20.
The plea was filed by N Murugesan of Dharmapuri district.
The petitioner, who cited information received under RTI, said of 5,400 seats available in medical colleges, only 106 students who studied in Tamil medium have got their medical seats, which is only 2 per cent.
Stating that the above data creates a false image that the students who have studied in Tamil medium will not get the medical seats, the petitioner said in Karnataka reservation of 5 percent seats was made available to candidates who studied Kannada medium in medical colleges.
The petitioner sought a direction from the Court to reserve 5 percent of the seats to the students who studied in Tamil medium.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabaskar informed the state Assembly on Wednesday that the AIADMK government had moved the Supreme Court against Section 10-D of the Indian Medical Council Act.
As soon as the Question Hour ended, Leader of Opposition MK Stalin said NEET went against the tenets of social justice and the interests of rural students and accused the ruling dispensation of "huge betrayal" on the issue. He sought to know about the state filing a plea against the test in the Apex Court just two days before the last date (January 6, 2020) to apply for NEET ended.