Madras HC seeks CBSE's stand over plea to cancel NEET, issues notice

The Madras high court has issued a notice to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) seeking its stand on a plea to cancel the May 7 National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

A vacation bench of justice R Mahadevan sought the CBSE's stand on the plea by an aspiring medical student's mother, who has contended that the examination breached the students' right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution. The bench had issued the notice to CBSE, slating the matter for to hear again on May 24. 

The mother of the candidate, who took the test in English language, has termed the test as being violative of the Article 14 contending that all the question papers in various language, including Hindi, English and Tamil, were not same and not of same difficulty level. 

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The petitioner submitted that selection under NEET would not amount to testing equal skills. It would amount to treatment of unequals as equals and thereby violating Article 14 of the Constitution, she submitted. 

She submitted though the test was conducted across India in all major languages, including Tamil, English and Hindi, the question paper in English was based on the CBSE syllabus, whereas the one in Tamil was based on the state syllabus. 

She alleged the authorities never told the candidates who took up NEET that the question papers in different languages would not be the same and that they have the discretion to frame different set of questions in different languages.

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Stating that the present evaluation system is contrary and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution, the petitioner prayed for an interim injunction against the declaration of results based on the NEET examination held on May 7 and sought a direction to cancel the test. She further sought a direction to re-conduct NEET with same set of questions of all major languages in India.