The Madras High Court has directed the Union Home Secretary to file an affidavit in the court by July 16, disclosing the date on which the President reportedly rejected two Bills passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly on February 1, 2017 for obtaining exemption for the State from the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).
A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad issued the direction after senior Central government standing counsel A. Kumaraguru and T.V. Krishnamachari informed the court that the two Bills were received by the Centre on February 20, 2017; withheld by the President on September 18, 2017 and subsequently rejected.
During the hearing of a batch of four public interest litigation petitions filed in 2017, seeking a direction to the State government to obtain the President’s assent at the earliest, the counsel told the court that an officer in the rank of Under Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs informed them that both the Bills had been rejected by the President.
Initially, the Centre amended the Indian Medical Council Act of 1956 and the Dentists Act of 1948 to introduce NEET, a national-level uniform entrance examination for gaining admission in government as well as private medical and dental institutions across the country at the undergraduate and postgraduate level.
The introduction of the test faced stiff resistance in the State, forcing the Assembly to pass the Tamil Nadu Admission to MBBS and BDS Courses Bill of 2017 and the Tamil Nadu Admission to Postgraduate Courses in Medicine and Dentistry Bill of 2017. The Bills provided for admission of students on the basis of their Plus Two marks.
The object behind the enactments was to address the challenges faced by students, especially those from rural areas, in accessing coaching classes due to paucity of funds. It also stated that Plus Two itself was a serious examination of merit casting a high burden on students, and therefore, there was no need for another qualifying examination.
One more reason cited by the legislature was that the syllabus, the methodology and the content of NEET were based on the syllabus prescribed by the Central Board of Secondary Education, which was different from the one prescribed by the State Board.
Since the State Bills were repugnant to the Central legislations, they were forwarded to the President for consent.
