The Madras High Court, while hearing a PIL on Monday, alleged that NEET(National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) discriminates against the poor.
The court was hearing a petition filed by S Dheeran, an aspiring medical student, for a directive to the Tamil Nadu government for undertaking proper counselling and a mop-up procedure to fill 207 MBBS seats under the management quota.
The bench comprising of Justices N Kirubakaran and P Velmurugan was informed by the Central government counsel that only 48 students got admitted to medical seats in government colleges, without attending coaching classes. Meanwhile, 3,033 students who secured admission to government colleges had attended coaching classes. Self-financing colleges also showed similar numbers – while only 52 students got admission without attending coaching classes, 1598 secured admission after attending coaching classes, said a report by The New Indian Express.
The council also submitted that only 1,040 students who got admission in government colleges had written NEET for the first time, while 2,041 candidates had appeared multiple times for the exam. In the case of self-financing colleges, only 588 students had cleared the exam in the first attempt, while 1,062 students cleared the exam in more than one attempt. The court also pointed out that the first-timers have to prepare for the 12th board exams and the NEET simultaneously. The students are hardly left with any time after completion of their higher secondary exam.
Stating the negligible number of students who secured admission without undergoing coaching, the judges said, “That means medical education is not available to the poor people and is available only to those who underwent coaching classes by spending lakhs and lakhs of rupees. Moreover, this will also put the rural students in a disadvantageous position, as they lack facilities of coaching.”
The court also asked the Union government to take note of the observations and also asked why the centre had not scrapped NEET like it had rolled back programs of the previous government. According to News 18, the bench also criticised the Tamil Nadu government for paying a negligible salary to doctors. The bench observed that, while the government doctors are paid just Rs 57,000, even a teacher and personal assistants of high court judges earn more.
In early September, an impersonation scam had also come to light after the Dean of Government Theni Medical College, A K Rajendran, received two emails alleging that MBBS student K V Udit Surya got admitted to the college by impersonation. Investigations had revealed that the accused had hired a proxy to write the exams. After the scam, the court had directed all medical colleges in Tamil Nadu to send a list of admitted students to the National Testing Agency(NTA).
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