Madras HC Reserves Orders on Plea against TN Govt. Order on Medical Admissions
- Justice K. Ravi Chandra Babu issued the directive after the daylong arguments on the issue.
- Defending the government order, Advocate General R. Muthukumaraswamy pointed that the policy of the state government contradicts the policy of NEET.
On July 11, 2017, the High Court of Madras ordered status quo on the admission process of BDS and MBBS admissions in Tamil Nadu until the formal decision on a plea against the order of state government issued on June 22, 2017. Justice K. Ravi Chandra Babu issued the directive after the daylong arguments on the issue. The state government issued an order on reserving 85% medical seats for the students of the state board and only 15% preference in medical admissions to the students of CBSE and other boards. CBSE students felt that the order was discriminatory and decided to challenge it in HC.
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Defending the government order, Advocate General R. Muthukumaraswamy pointed that the policy of the state government contradicts the policy of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). He further explained that 84,000 state board students out of 4.30 lakh appeared for the NEET examination while only 2,000 CBSE students out of 4,000 appeared for the exam. More than 50% of questions in the medical entrance exam were CBSE centric. Therefore, there was an inequality/ discrimination in the all-India medical entrance exam, he added.
The Advocate General further pointed that under 85-15% quota close to 2,000 students of the state board and 520 CBSE students may get admission in MBBS/ BDS courses.
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On the other hand, the petitioners claimed that there should not be any discrimination in the national level entrance test according to the order issued by Supreme Court. The state government must not distribute the seats among students of state and CSBE board. Instead, the state government must give equal preference to all the students.
After hearing the arguments of both the parties, the judge reserved an order on the petitions and issued status quo until the final order.
The state government of Tamil Nadu is expected to release the NEET-UG 2017 merit list on July 14, 2017, and the counselling process is expected to begin from July 17, 2017.