NEET and States: On Tamil Nadu Assembly on re-adoption of anti-NEET Bill

With Tamil Nadu Assembly is once again passing its old bill The ball is once again in Governor RN Ravi’s court demanding exemption of government seats in undergraduate medical and dental courses from the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET). The governor had opted to return to the House for reconsideration of the bill passed in September 2021, questioning the validity of the Justice AK Rajan committee report, which had given its findings in favor of the passage of such a law. As far as the Governor’s action is concerned, the DMK regime has made the Constitution clear. If the Bill is presented before him again, Mr. Ravi is constitutionally bound to assent. It is a matter of speculation whether the bill will get the assent of the President, but the episode raises a question whether the Governor could not have escaped the current situation by reserving the bill for the President rather than returning it. After all, it is clearly a bill that requires the assent of the President – ​​exemption from NEET is in contrast to the central law which makes it mandatory and, therefore, can be avoided only with the assent of the President. Despite the merits of the Bill, the Governor should not delay the matter further. The original intention of the framers of the Constitution was that the Governor should, under Article 200, have no discretion, in the matter of a law that dilutes the position of the High Court, which he is bound to reserve for the consideration of the President. . However, the rare use of discretion by the governor to question the desirability or validity of a bill and ask for reconsideration is now a matter of constitutional exercise.

Parts of the Governor’s communication to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly seem to suggest that Mr. Ravi disagrees with the premise of the Bill, even though he is not wrong in highlighting the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of NEET. It is generally not desirable for the governor to try to match the knowledge of the legislature on the social inputs that inform policy. It would be useful to remember that the Sarkaria Commission on Centre-State Relations observed that the Governor should not act contrary to the advice of the Council of Ministers merely because he did not like the policy contained in the Bill. Now the focus will be on whether the NEET Exemption Bill will pass muster or not. For one thing, the exemption may not solve the problem of not enough number of government school students making it to MBBS courses. The situation was not better before the introduction of NEET. However, the issue of NEET being a barrier to access is real. There is no doubt that the mandatory nature of NEET on a pan-India basis undermines the role of state governments in medical education. As the main providers of public health, states cannot be denied a say in who attends medical courses in government colleges.