There will be no change to the horizontal reservation of 7.5 per cent for students from government schools in medical colleges in Tamil Nadu. The Madras High Court has dismissed petitions challenging the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Courses in Medicine, Dentistry, Indian Medicine and Homeopathy on a preferential basis to students of the Government Schools Act of 2020. While upholding the legislation, the Bench, led by Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy also instructed the government to improve the quality of education in government schools to ensure that students from underprivileged backgrounds are not forced to turn to coaching institutes to qualify competitive exams.
The law was challenged by a group of petitioners who claimed that the Tamil Nadu government was creating a "class within a class" and was giving preferential treatment to students from government schools. Responding to the petitioners' demand to justify the reservation, advocate Kapil Sibal, who represented the state, said that there were disparities in the development of students from various class backgrounds and that such measures were necessary to provide them with equal opportunities and create a level playing field.
The state also argued that it is granted authority by the Constitution to create such sources of admission for certain sections of society. The Tamil Nadu government's constant battle with the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions into medical courses has been rooted in the argument that it discriminates against students from rural and underprivileged backgrounds who cannot afford the coaching required to clear the exam and land one of those coveted 10,000 seats.
The Justice AK Rajan Committee report, which was tabled in 2020, also stated that only the percentage of government school students who were able to land a medical seat dropped from 14.44% in the pre-NEET era to a dismal1.7% in 2020-21 in Tamil Nadu.
