Tamil Nadu Assembly unanimously passes NEET exemption bill through voice vote

The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Tuesday passed the Bill against National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) through a voice vote. The anti-NEET Bill was reintroduced today to provide for admission to undergraduate courses in medicine, dentistry, Indian medicine and homeopathy on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying examination.

Earlier Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin said that the state would convene a special assembly to pass another bill for exemption of NEET, days after Governor RN Ravi returned a similar bill, calling it “anti-poor”.

Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi on February 1 had returned the Bill to the Assembly Speaker M Appavu for reconsideration by the House. It was passed in the Assembly on September 13, 2021 to scrap NEET.

The meeting, chaired by Stalin at the Secretariat, unanimously passed a resolution to convene a special sitting of the Assembly and get that Bill adopted again and send it to the Governor to forward it to the central government to get Presidential assent. In his address, Stalin said the Governor should have immediately forwarded the Bill to the President to get his assent. However, the Governor did not do his Constitutional duty, the Chief Minister alleged.

Hence, Stalin said he visited Ravi on November 27, 2021 and urged him to send the Bill to the Centre. Stalin said a Supreme Court judgment that upheld NEET was cited by Raj Bhavan in a press note on return of the Bill to the government. “That judgment is different and the Tamil Nadu Assembly’s powers to enact law is different. That is why we are seeking the approval of the President to this Bill,” he had said.

The move came after a 19-year-old medical aspirant was found dead at his home in Salem hours before the NEET exam in 2021.

• NEET exemption bill
• Tamil Nadu Assembly
• unanimously passes
• voice vote