Madurai
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday ordered the selection committee to consider the plea of a medical aspirant who was denied a seat in the NEET counselling on the basis of nativity. The boy, born to Tamils from Sri Lanka, had completed his school education in Thoothukudi where his parents had settled down.
The court was hearing the petition filed by P. Karuppasamy from Thoothukudi. The petitioner claimed that he was rejected on the basis of nativity. He said that he was born and brought up in Thoothukudi and had obtained a scheduled caste community certificate issued by the Tahsildar concerned. He said that the rejection was not justified.
Additional Advocate General K. Chellapandian argued that candidates should be a native of Tamil Nadu and those candidates from other States can be considered only in the open category.
The petitioner’s father was born in Sri Lanka and had studied in Karnataka. The parents of the petitioner were not from Tamil Nadu, as a result nativity cannot be claimed, he said.
The court took cognisance of the documents of the boy’s parents which mentioned their race as Indian Tamil. Also the boy’s grandfather was an Indian Citizen. The father of the boy had moved to India in his early age and had studied in Karnataka.
He later moved to Tamil Nadu and the family settled in Thoothukudi after the boy’s birth. Also a community certificate was obtained for the boy.
Justice R. Suresh Kumar observed that the parents of the boy had settled in Thoothukudi which was verified by the revenue authorities. A permanent community certificate was also issued that the boy belonged to the scheduled caste community.
Law is well settled that as far as communal status was concerned, if a certificate was issued by a competent authority until and unless the certificate is withdrawn or cancelled in matter known to law, the law shall presume that the candidate belongs to that community, the court said.
The court directed the selection committee to consider the candidature of the petitioner for admission to MBBS as per his community ranking based on his NEET marks.
However, the selection and the admission to be given to the petitioner shall be provisional, which shall be confirmed only after getting verification on the community status of the petitioner, the court said.