A big wave of water swept right over the Tamil Nadu government as the Madras HC bashed its previously issued order of reserving 85 per cent of MBBS and BDS seats to state board students and only 15 per cent for CBSE and other boards, holding that it amounted to discrimination among equals.
The petition was filed by a few CBSE students challenging the government order passed on June 22. Passing the case in favour of young petitioners, Justice K Ravichndrababu held that the impugned reservation was bad in law and violated Art 14 of the Constitution (Equality before law).
The Justice also claimed that reservation indirectly meddled with the object and process of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and compromised on merits of selection.
Dismissing the order, the bench passed the ruling directing the authorities to generate a fresh merit list and schedule counselling accordingly. On July 11, the judge had put reservation orders over the petitions by Darnish Kumar, a student represented by his parents, and two others and ordered status quo on the admission process till the adjudication of the matter.
The state government had not been in favour of NEET, and hence, had been defending the government order. The reason had been that it is CBSE that organises NEET and it is only natural that 50% of the course was from CBSE. This occurrence made the government anti-NEET as it pulled of the card of ‘inequality in the all-India exam’.
Up against this claim by the government, the petitioners raised their voices saying that Supreme court had clearly stated that when admission is based on entrance examination NEET, it should make no difference whether the qualifying examination was conducted by the state board or CBSE because no discrimination can be made between the schools affiliated to both the boards.
In accordance with the original schedule, merit lists for medical colleges had been released today and July 17 has been booked for the counselling.
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