The Madras High Court on Wednesday empathised with State Board students “who had burnt the midnight oil” to score high marks in their Plus Two examinations and still could not make it to medical courses this year due to admissions being made only on the basis of marks scored in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).
Justice N. Kirubakaran blamed the failure to raise the standard of State Board syllabus in the last 15 years or so as the reason for the present state of affairs and expressed deep concern over recent reports of a few parents and students resorting to extreme steps such as committing suicides on being dejected over the issue.
The observations were made during the hearing of a writ petition filed by S. Kirthuka, a State Board student from Bodipatti in Tiruppur district. The petitioner had scored 1,184 out of 1,200 marks in the Plus Two examinations but had scored just 154 out of 720 marks in NEET.
Though advocate P. Velmurugan contended that extraordinary situations call for extraordinary remedies and therefore the State should be directed to take decisions such as increasing the number of medical seats in order to accomodate State Board students too in medical courses, the judge turned down the request.
“How is it possible to increase the seats without any infrastructure? Even if the seats are increased, they also would have to be filled up only on the basis of NEET. It is true that we are facing an extraordinary situation but the avenues are closed. We can’t do anything once the Supreme Court has taken a decision on the issue,” he said. Later, the judge said that a detailed order on the issue would be passed on Thursday.s