Chennai, June 29 : The Madras High Court Today sought to know from the DMK government whether proper permission was sought from the Supreme Court to constitute a committee to review the impact of NEET in Tamil Nadu.

When a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by BJP State Secretary K Nagarajan seeking to quash the June 10 Government Order constituting a committee headed by Justice A.K. Rajan to study the impact of the NEET on socially backward students came up for hearing, the First Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy said the State government could not take any measure against the Supreme Court verdict.

Appearing for the petitioner, Advocate V Raghavachari argued that the Supreme Court had emphasized that all States have to accept NEET and that Tamil Nadu could not resonate a different voice.

The Chief Justice orally observed that since the Supreme Court has issued such positive directions for the implementation of NEET, it is completely futile to set up a committee to study the impact of NEET.

“It is completely futile to set up committee …you obtain leave of Supreme Court, otherwise this exercise should stop,” the Chief Justice said.

Appearing for the State government, Advocate General R Shanmugasundaram assured that the State will respond in the matter and sought some time to do so.

“This is a policy decision backed by manifesto and people’s demand,” he said, following which the Court granted a week’s time for the State to respond.

A copy of the petition was also directed to be served on the Additional Solicitor General’s office, so that the Union may also indicate its stand on the issue.

The Court also recorded the petitioner’s contention that after the Supreme Court’s August 22, 2017 order that “The State of Tamil Nadu shall not make any distinction or discrimination between the exams conducted by various boards and admission shall be effected as per results of NEET”, there can be little room for the State to set up any committee to ascertain if the NEET-based admission process has prejudicially affected socially backward students.

In his petition, Nagarajan said the constitution of the committee itself was illegal since most of the members who are part of the committee are opposed to NEET.

Stating that the committee had already begun eliciting opinions from members of the public, the petitioner pressed for an interim stay on the operation of the government order.

According to the litigant, the committee had been constituted on the basis of a view taken by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin that government school students and those from rural backgrounds were struggling to get admission to medical colleges owing to the introduction of NEET and therefore, such admissions should be made on the basis of Plus Two marks.

Contending that students in the State had become accustomed to NEET in the last four years, the petitioner accused the State government of politicizing the issue and creating confusion.

He said the constitution of the committee was far beyond the competence of the State and termed it a reckless act.(UNI)