Chennai: Student files plea to accept belated application for Neet

Chennai: Contending that due to the propaganda of the state government that the aspirants for pursuing the medical courses would be admitted based on their plus two board examination marks and the students need not appear for National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Neet), he could not apply for Neet in time, a plus-2 student has approached the Madras high court to direct the authorities to accept his belated application for Neet.

Justice N.Kirubakaran before whom the petition filed by P.Desiyan came up for hearing, posted it to March 20, after Central government senior standing counsel J.Madanagopal Rao and Additional government pleader P.Sanjaigandhi took notices for Union and state governments respectively.

According to petitioner, he scored 478 out of 500 marks in SSLC examination. He was appearing for the public examination in XII standard now and he aspires to pursue his further studies in medicine. In 2016, the Supreme court delivered a verdict that a Uniform entrance test should be conducted for admission into medical courses. The common examination will be conducted by the Central Board of School Education. Subsequently, the CBSE was conducting the Neet across the country.

However, certain state governments including the state of Tamil Nadu, had objected to the Neet and had requested the Union government to grant exemption to aspiring students of state of TN from appearing Neet examination. In this behalf, the state legislature had passed a bill called as “The Tamil Nadu admission to MBBS and BDS courses Bill 2017”, seeking to admit students based on the marks secured by them in the plus two examinations. However, the Bill has not received the assent of the President and the Bill was still pending. In the meantime, the CBSE had announced that the Neet  will be conducted on May 7, 2017, and called for applications. The last date for submission of the applications was on March 1, 2017. As the state government had taken steps to do away with the Neet, he did not apply for appearing in the Neet in time. Therefore, he has filed the present petition to direct the authorities to accept his belated application for appearing in the Neet, he added.