Madras High Court to hear all NEET petitions on July 13

The Madras High Court has directed all petitioners in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) case that it would hear their petitions in the afternoon session of July 13.

Additional Solicitor General R. Sankaranarayanan informed the bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy that the Centre would file its counter-affidavit by the end of the day or on Tuesday morning to a case filed by the BJP's Tamil Nadu state Secretary, K. Nagarajan, challenging the constitution of a committee headed by Justice (Rtd) A.K. Rajan to study the NEET's impact on the state.

The state government had constituted the committee in June.

Sankaranarayanan said that he would also serve the copies of the counter-affidavit to the writ petitioner as well as numerous political parties, organisations, and individuals who wanted to be impleaded in the case.

The court had ordered that the Centre's counter-affidavit should be filed by July 8 and served on counsel of the DK, the DMK, the MDMK, the CPI, and others who wanted to implead in the case.

Advocate General R. Shanmugasundaram, representing the state government, said that he was ready to argue the case and that he had already filed a counter-affidavit on its behalf.

Senior lawyer P. Wilson, who was representing a student who had sought to be impleaded in the case, said: "There is nothing new in the constitution of a committee and Justice P. Kalaiyarasan committee's recommendation had led to 7.5 per cent reservation for medical admission to government school students."

Advocate V. Raghavachari, appearing for petitioner Nagarajan, countered Wilson's argument, saying: "There is nothing new and all petitions regarding NEET were dismissed by the Supreme Court and there is resistance to NEET only in Tamil Nadu and this has to end. It's a political game and it must end."

As both the lawyers sparred against each other, Chief Justice Banerjee intervened, saying that both would be given ample time to argue their respective view points.