Tamil Nadu is in turmoil again following the suicide of 17-year-old Anitha, daughter of a Dalit daily wage labourer from a remote village in backward Ariyalur district who could not get a medical seat in spite of securing 1,176 marks out of 1,200 in the Class XII examination because of imposition of the National Eligibility Entrance Test for MBBS, BDS and post-graduate medical courses.

Venkaiah Naidu, Vice-President of India, and Nirmala Sitharaman, Defence Minister, had assured the Tamil Nadu government on behalf of the BJP that the State would be exempt from NEET this year. Neither could keep their promise.

NEET was introduced first in 2012 and was opposed by Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It was struck down in July 2013 by a three-judge Bench headed by then Chief Justice of India, Altamas Kabir, as unconstitutional.

The judgment said it would deprive State-run universities and medical colleges of their right to admit students as per their own procedures and noted NEET would violate the rights of religious and linguistic minorities to establish and administer educational institutions enshrined in Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution.

After the BJP came to power, the Supreme Court, on a review petition by the Medical Council of India, undid the three-judge Bench’s judgment and revived the idea of holding a national test to ascertain the eligibility of students aspiring to study medicine anywhere in the country.

The Medical Council Act, 1956, and the regulations framed under it, do not empower the MCI to formulate and enforce a single window admission process.

Having got the green signal from the Supreme Court, the Narendra Modi government raced against time to implement NEET. Then President Pranab Mukherjee was persuaded to sign an ordinance removing State boards from the ambit of NEET and bringing private medical colleges across the country under it.

Without having a common syllabus for school education throughout the country and prescribing common entrance examination meant denying a level playing field for medical aspirants.

Students who studied in a particular stream of education were compelled to take the entrance examination that followed another system of education which weeded out students like Anitha.

Standardising entrance examinations across the country is not only an assault on federalism, but also bad in policy.

The Christian Medical College, Vellore, an institution of excellence known all over the world with 100 MBBS seats and 61 seats in super specialities, has already stopped admitting students as it does not want to lower its standards.

Marks alone do not constitute merit, the college authorities maintain. By its policy of having a medical college in every district and inclusive admission system, Tamil Nadu has the best medicare system in the country. Does the Centre want to pull it down to the level of Uttar Pradesh?