Madras High Court stays Neet results until June 7

Madurai: The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday granted an interim stay on the publication of the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (Neet) result until future orders.

Justice M.V. Muralidharan passed the order of interim injunction restraining the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) from proceeding further on the Neet process, when petitioners contended that different question papers were given to candidates who took the same eligibility test.

In two writ petitions,  one filed by nine students who appeared for Neet conducted by CBSE on May 7, and another by T. Sakthimalarkodi, father of a girl student from Tiruchy, the petitioners claimed that different sets of questions were framed by CBSE for different states, which was against the ordinance No.6 of 2016 brought in for the purpose of conducting uniform entrance examination across the country.

For instance, the questions set for students who opted for English medium were tough compared to question papers in Gujarati and Hindi.

“Education experts also found that the Gujarati question paper was very light and easy to answer compared to English and other vernacular medium question papers,” the petitioners contended before the court.

In the case of Tamil Nadu, the CBSE had issued different sets of question papers for students who opted for English and Tamil medium, said the petitioners.

Though the same issue was raised in other states like Karnataka, Maharashtra and Bengali, the Central authorities remained silent, said the petitioners. This practice would only result in selecting the students with lower caliber for medical education. Hence, the advocates, who appeared for the petitioners, requested the court to direct the Union minister of health and family welfare, the director general of health services, MCI, and CBSE to conduct Neet afresh for under-graduates through a uniform common entrance with uniform questions for all candidates within a time-frame fixed by the court.

After listening to the arguments, the judge told the respondents to file the counter and posted the next hearing on June 7.