Inconclusive chapter: On Tamil Nadu and NEET.
Tamil Nadu should help prepare its students for clearing NEET.
With President Droupadi Murmu withholding assent for the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill 2021, the State is bracing for another battle against National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)-based admissions. State Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has convened a meeting of legislature party leaders on April 9 to strategise the next move. With the admission season approaching, the development is bound to cause uncertainty and make medical aspirants anxious. Exemption from NEET now remains an inconclusive chapter in the State’s decade-old policy discourse. No other State effort to legislate against a central mandate has been so protracted and unpredictable. In September 2017, two anti-NEET Bills met with a similar fate in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Four years later, the ruling DMK — having made NEET exemption a central electoral promise — passed the Bill in the Assembly based on the recommendations of the Justice A.K. Rajan Committee. Instead of forwarding it for presidential assent, Governor R.N. Ravi returned it to the House after five months. In a historic first, the Assembly unanimously re-adopted the Bill and sent it back to him; the Governor subsequently forwarded it to the President. Last week, Mr. Stalin informed the Assembly that assent had been denied, without specifying when Rashtrapati Bhavan had communicated the decision.
This delay in the matter attaining finality is concerning as students have been left facing a state of perpetual uncertainty. The State remains firm in its policy of conducting admission for government quota medical seats based on the Class 12 Board examination scores. Early on, the Ministry of Home Affairs had asked “whether the Bill endangered the sovereignty, unity and integrity of the nation” to which the AYUSH Ministry responded affirmatively. The framers of the Constitution had incorporated Article 254 (2) empowering the President to grant assent to Bills repugnant to central laws on Concurrent List matters. NEET has been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court of India too. The President is under no obligation to give assent, although the Bill reflects the collective will of Tamil Nadu’s legislature: it was passed unanimously. True, NEET is neither foolproof nor an absolute measure of academic competency, but Tamil Nadu’s legal options are limited. The judiciary is unlikely to settle the issue with any urgency. The State must prepare for a legal struggle, and in the interim, coach students to face NEET with confidence.