HC upholds 7.5% horizontal reservation for government school students in medical admissions

The Madras High Court on Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of a 2020 bill passed by the then-AIADMK government providing 7.5 per cent horizontal reservation in medical and dental admissions to government school students who clear NEET.

Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the order while dismissing a batch of petitions filed by students from private schools challenging the constitutionality of the Tamil Nadu Admission to undergraduate courses in Medicine, Dentistry, Indian Medicine and Homeopathy on preferential basis to students of Government Schools Act, 2020.

“…we uphold constitutional validity (of the law) and all the Writ Petitions are dismissed, however, with a direction to the State Government to review the same in a period of five years as recommended by the Commission and during the intervening period steps be taken to improve the standard of education imparted in the Government schools, so that the reservation may not further be extended beyond the period of five years,” the judges said.

The law now allows at least 400 students from government schools to get into medical colleges every year.

The law was passed by the assembly in 2020 to ensure that a particular number of students from government schools in the state get into medical and dental colleges after criticism that the introduction of NEET has put them in a disadvantageous position. The then AIADMK government had passed the bill after it came under pressure from opposition parties for “allowing NEET” into Tamil Nadu.

Though the AIADMK government got the bill passed, the DMK deployed its legal eagles to argue on behalf of the Tamil Nadu government to ensure that the law is upheld. Senior counsel and DMK Rajya Sabha MP P Wilson appeared on behalf of the Higher Education Department and argued that the intent was to “uplift government school students who suffer from economic, social and educational backwardness.”

Both AIADMK and DMK took credit for the verdict and termed it as yet another step towards achieving social justice.

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