Tamil Nadu Govt Moves Supreme Court After President Withholds Assent to Anti-NEET Bill
New Delhi: The Tamil Nadu government on Saturday (November 15) moved the Supreme Court challenging the President of India's decision to withhold assent to a legislation that exempts the state from providing admission to medical colleges under the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).
The Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021 was unanimously passed by the state assembly. The President’s decision to withhold assent to the bill has created a constitutional impasse, the state government said in its plea, Bar and Bench reported.
The suit was settled by Senior Advocate P. Wilson and filed through advocate Misha Rohatgi.
The state government said that NEET favoured urban, affluent, CBSE educated students while disadvantaging underprivileged students from rural backgrounds who were educated in government and mostly Tamil-medium schools, The Hindu reported.
While the 2021 bill was referred to the Governor for consideration of the President, the state government had also given replies to objections and clarifications from the Union Ministries.
It said that the Presidential assent was mechanically denied without assigning any reasons and communicated through the Governor’s secretariat on March 4.
“This suit raises substantial question of law as to interpretation of the Constitution raising significant questions relating to the State’s legislative autonomy, Constitutional federalism, the scope of Article 201, Article 254(2) [in case a State law is found repugnant to an existing Central law], and the State’s primary duty under Article 47 to safeguard public health by ensuring equitable access to medical education,” the state government was quoted as saying in its plea by The Hindu.
It also said that NEET had unsettled the “equilibrium” in Tamil Nadu since 2017 after it was uniformly imposed by the centre and had resulted in the exclusion of first generation learners from government schools.
“The NEET system had fuelled a parallel and highly commercialised coaching industry, which now generates thousands of crores annually. Data reveals that in Tamil Nadu, more than 70% of students securing MBBS admissions post-NEET are ‘repeaters’, while first-generation learners from government schools are effectively excluded,” the Tamil Nadu government submitted.In April, the Supreme Court in a landmark judgement declared the Tamil Nadu governor R.N. Ravi’s actions to stall the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government’s bills were “erroneous and illegal” and held that no governor has the power to indefinitely override decisions made by the legislature that have an elected mandate and are directly accountable to people.
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