The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Wednesday restrained the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) from declaring the results of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for admission to MBBS and BDS courses for the academic year 2017. Justice M.V. Muralidharan issued the interim injunction on a petition filed by a group of students claiming that different question papers set for the examination would lead to discrimination among students.
The court also directed Medical Council of India, CBSE and Union health ministry to file counter affidavit on June 7 on the issue.
The petition was filed by nine students from Madurai, who sought a direction to cancel the NEET examination conducted on May 7 and hold a fresh test with a uniform question paper. The petition argued that the CBSE had framed different question papers thereby denying the students a level playing field. The CBSE conducted the test in English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Odia and Assamese.
Earlier, Justice N. Seshasayee had refused to grant an interim order when the matter came up for hearing last week, but he issued a notice to the Board.
The students—S. Jonila, P. Surya, P. Siddarth, K. Ajay Sharan, S. Nitin Prakash Sivasubramanian, Gautham Sankar, J. Aditya, D. Richard Rishaban Dass and M. Naveen Kumar—said in their affidavit that they had to write the exam in English on the basis of uniform syllabus.
The students said they were shocked to see that the question paper was not uniform across the country, and claimed that the paper in Tamil was easier that English.
"One India, one question paper in the NEET is a must. Otherwise the scaling of intelligence and aptitude would differ. Further, an uneven playing field would infringe the right to equal opportunity in education,” they said.
They also claimed that the students in other states like Maharashtra, Karnataka and West Bengal too were disturbed over different question papers in different languages.
