A petition was filed on Tuesday in the Supreme Court for a direction to the Tamil Nadu government to initiate a judicial enquiry by a panel led by a retired Madras High Court judge into the death of S. Anitha, a Dalit girl who had filed a case in the apex court against NEET.
The petition, filed by Supreme Court lawyer G.S. Mani, further asked the court to intervene and direct the State government to maintain the law and order situation. The death led to widespread protests, road blocks by students all over the State.
“The agitations and road blocks create a law and order situation which is very dangerous. The State authority is unable to keep the situation under control,” the petition said.
The petition further accused political parties of instigating students to indulge in violence. It asked the court to “not permit political parties and the public to conduct illegal strike/boycott/human-chain/road blocking/rail roko or any other mode of strike against NEET.”
The petition said, the State authorities should come to the aid of State Board students by upgrading the syllabus to make it on par with the CBSE. This would help the State Board students to compete in NEET with their CBSE counterparts on equal terms.
Seventeen-year-old Anitha, who had scored 1,176 out of 1,200 marks in her Class XII State Board examinations, was unable to join the MBBS course due to poor scores in NEET.
The daughter of a daily wage labourer, hailing from Kuzhumur village near Sendurai in Ariyalur, had impleaded herself as one of the respondents in a Supreme Court case challenging NEET. The court had refused to give Tamil Nadu any exemption from NEET and had directed the authorities to complete counselling by September 7.
Anitha's death had triggered strong reactions from political parties and social activists who had been seeking exemption for the State from NEET.