Court rejects petition on medical seat quota

Madras high court bench headed by Justice Vineet Kothari said the court did not want a sword to be hanging over the heads of students hailing from economically poor families. The plea alleged the law promotes mediocracy by proving seats to students who had scored 135 marks.

Chennai:Refusing to entertain the plea seeking the interim stay on 7.5 percent reservation, a Madras high court bench headed by Justice Vineet Kothari said the court do not want a sword to be hanging over the heads of students hailing from economically poor families.

The plea was filed by a private college student who could not secure medical seat despite scoring 565 marks in her third attempt in NEET.

The petition alleged the law promotes mediocracy by proving seats to students who had scored 135 marks. Justices Vineet Kothari and M S Ramesh admitted the writ petition but refused to order that admission of government college students in the current academic year would be subject to an outcome of the case. The plea also claimed the law is unfair as it provides seats to those who failed to score more than 200 marks in NEET.

Expressing concern over the academic standard of government school students, the bench ordered the state government to take necessary steps to improve the standard of students. The judges opined that the system has to consider government school trained students as "our own children and not as an enemy."

"The law is brought to ensure poor students also secure the medical seats," the court said.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously had passed the law to provide 7.5 percent horizontal reservation on a preferential basis in medical admissions for state government school students who clear the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

This year 405 students who benefitted from the law.