Two days after the Madras High Court struck down the 85% quota allotted for state board students applying for medical courses, the Tamil Nadu Government is set to challenge the decision. One of the primary argument the state will offer, is that only 5% of state board students who cleared NEET will be able to get into Government medical colleges if there is no reservation for them, reports ToI.
The state health department will reportedly put forward a set of arguments in favour of the quota before a division bench of the Madras HC. This will aim to reverse the order of a single judge bench quashing the reservation. According to reports, three out of 10 CBSE and other board students are likely to get admissions, while only one in 20 state board students will manage to clear the requirements.
While the rank list is not out, reports suggest that 48% of the existing seats are likely to be taken by CBSE and other board students.
On Friday, the court had ordered that the state must not meddle with the objective of NEET. The government order was criticised by the Court while hearing the petition filed by the parent of a minor who has passed out of a CBSE school and is attempting to gain entry into a medical college. Justice Ravichandrababu, who was hearing the case, said, "There is no difficulty for this Court to come to the conclusion that the impugned reservation amounts to discrimination among equals and thus, it violates Article 14 of the constitution.
Article 14 grants every citizen of the country the right to equality.
The court further went on to rap the state government, by concluding that the move to bring in this quota is "an arbitrary exercise of power, that it is totally unreasonable, that, under the guise of level playing, it makes the equal unequal."