DMK MLA’s plea a new googly against NEET?

DMK MLA’s plea a new googly against NEET?

So, if the petitioner wins this case, it would be a big victory for the ruling DMK in its fight against NEET.

Published: 15th September 2021 03:28 AM 

NEET candidates at Asan Memorial Senior Secondary School in Chennai on Sunday. (EPS | P Jawahar)

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday admitted a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by DMK MLA, Dr Ezhilan Naganathan, challenging an Emergency-era Constitutional amendment insofar as it moved the subject of education from the State List to the Concurrent List.

Though the petition made no mention of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), if the plea succeeds, State governments will be able to do away with the NEET and even the National Education Policy.

On matters in the Concurrent List, the Union government has the final word and that’s why the Bill exempting Tamil Nadu from the NEET, passed by the State government on Monday, has to get Presidential approval to become a law. So, if the petitioner wins this case, it would be a big victory for the ruling DMK in its fight against NEET. If education is brought back to the State List, the State no longer has to depend on the Union government’s concurrence on the issue, a stumbling block for the Bill passed by the previous AIADMK regime.

The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu admitted the plea on Tuesday and impleaded the Tamil Nadu government as a party-respondent in the case by itself. It ordered the notice, returnable in eight weeks, to the State and Union governments. The matter will be taken up for hearing after 10 weeks, the bench said.

‘Amendment upset federal structure’

According to the petitioner, the shifting of education from the State List to the Concurrent List by the 1976 Constitutional amendment is a violation of the basic structure doctrine. He argued the said amendment has resulted in upsetting the federal structure as originally envisaged by the Constitution framers.

“By virtue of transferring the subject of education from List II to List III, the States’ executive/legislative autonomy in the matters of education has become subservient to Union’s executive/ legislative powers,” the petitioner said. The bench observed that the subject had not been taken out of the State’s purview entirely, as it is still in the Concurrent List and not in the Union List.

Therefore, the court wondered whether this would amount to tinkering with the basic structure of the Constitution. The DMK MLA’s petition argued that the reason behind giving exclusive authority to the States on the subject of education was due to the fact that it is the State government which knows the individual needs and aspirations of the people in different areas/localities and is better placed to address the gaps in the system, and formulate policies that are tailored to their needs.

Another aspirant kills self

Days after the reported suicide of a 19-year-old NEET aspirant in Salem, a 17-year-old girl in Ariyalur district ended her life on Monday night, upset over a “difficult” question paper