Greeva Garg –
The Madras High Court has observed that, too many impleading pleas in a PIL petition has been filed against the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) Panel constituted by Tamil Nadu Government, that might lead to confusion for the Court.
The division bench comprising of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy remarked upon the PIL petition filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State Unit General Secretary K Nagarajan.
The PIL filed before the Madras High Court sought for quashing the Order passed by State Government for constituting the High-Level committee on NEET.
A committee led by retired Judge of the Madras High Court A K Rajan, aimed at observing the impact of NEET on aspirants for medical admissions from the socially deprived sections of society, was earlier challenged by Nagarajan in the Madras High Court.
Opposing the plea by BJP, major political parties including the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its allies has filed the petition before the High Court to implead themselves.
“It would not allow all of them to get impleaded as the same might lead to confusion. Nevertheless, all would be given an opportunity of a hearing since the issue was of some importance and all stakeholders ought to be heard,” the Bench said.
Additional Solicitor General R Sankaranarayanan informed the Court that the Centre will file its Counter Affidavit in respect of this matter.
Nandhini, a medical student who sought to implead in this case through her Senior Counsel P Wilson said that, “The constitution of the committee was not new and referred to another panel’s recommendations, which led to the 7.5 per cent reservation for Government school students in medical admissions.”
Petitioner’s senior counsel V Raghavachari said that, “The Supreme Court had rejected the arguments against the introduction of NEET. There is resistance to NEET only in Tamil Nadu. It is a political game and it must end.”
