Chennai: While returning the NEET Exemption Bill to the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker recently, Governor R N Ravi had observed that the report of the Justice A K Rajan Committee on the basis of which the Bill was passed, merely reflected, “the jaundiced view” of the committee.
The Governor’s observation came to light when Speaker M Appavu placed Ravi’s letter before the members of the Assembly during a special session convened to re-adopt the Bill on Tuesday.
According to the Governor, the Justice Rajan Committee report was based on “several unsubstantiated sweeping assumptions”. The report had called NEET directionless, anti-merit, and said it paved the way for poorly-skilled candidates who were financially and socially strong, and thus made the medical profession dominated by poor quality professionals, discouraged complex thinking and higher order of skilling, compared to the State Board examinations.
“When the Supreme Court has found NEET to be in national interest and also for the protection of the weaker sections of society, will it be open for the State government to seek an exemption from NEET, particularly in view of the fact that the same has been held to be mandatory and applicable across the country?” the Governor asked.
Citing the report which contended that NEET was heavily biased in favour of Physics, Chemistry and Biology instead of being open to test all possible knowledge as in the State Board examinations, Ravi said, “It is beyond argument that the medical profession is a highly specialised discipline of science in which a reasonably sound knowledge of the basics of Physics, Chemistry and Biology is a pre-requisite.”
Stating that in the pre-NEET era hardly 1% of State Government school students made it to Government medical colleges, he said, “It reflects the sorry state of affairs in the Government schools which cater mostly to the poor students. Ignoring this crucial fact coming in the way of social justice, the report instead goes off the tangent and blames NEET.”
He rejected the report’s recommendation that NEET was against social justice as it favoured rich students who take advantage of coaching that the poor cannot afford. He said the report “totally ignores the fact that coaching skews the State Board results also”.
Citing a Supreme Court order in the Christian Medical College Vellore Association vs. Union of India (2020), he said the court had ruled that the prescription of NEET was to provide equal opportunities and a level launching platform to an individual to perform his duty as enshrined under Article 51-A(j).
Hence he returned the Bill for reconsideration of the House and deliberate on the points raised by him.
