KRISHNADAS RAJAGOPAL

The Supreme Court on Thursday barred medical admissions in Tamil Nadu till August 22. It also asked the Medical Council of India and the State government to balance between students who got through National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and rural students unequipped for the test.

The court ordered the State government to provide the details of how many students from State board had qualified for NEET by Tuesday. “We don’t want a situation where NEET is demolished”, it said.

“Our motto is ‘whatever we do, a student who laboured for NEET and got a rank should not suffer at whatever cost,” it said.

A petition had contended that even the recent ordinance of the State government to exempt Tamil Nadu from NEET this year was merely a political bargaining chip that would affect the lives and careers of students.

“The State government is prevaricating and attempting at the last moment to change the criteria for admission to MBBS seats in government medical colleges and government quota seats in self-financing colleges in Tamil Nadu from NEET-based to Plus 2 marks in violation of the Supreme Court’s decision and Section 10 D of the Medical Council of India Act. The Tamil Nadu government is acting for extraneous considerations to benefit private State board schools,” the petition alleged.

It accused the “Tamil Nadu Ministers of bargaining with the Central government to get presidential assent for an ordinance they propose to introduce exempting the State students from NEET for the academic year 2017-18 as a quid pro quo for supporting the NDA candidates for the presidential and vice-presidential polls”.

(This news report was first published in The Hindu online edition)