The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has lauded the steps taken by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami in creating a revolving fund to financially help the NEET-qualified government school students who were allotted seats in private medical colleges and dental colleges under the 7.5% horizontal quota.
Justice S. Vaidyanathan observed that this will help the State to produce more meritorious doctors to serve the public and concentrate in treating patients rather than earning.
Money factor
If a person spends more money for an MBBS seat and thereafter for higher education, he/she will concentrate on earning and not on service, the judge said.
Pointing to the plight of one candidate, G. Karthika Jothi, who gave up the medical seat prior to the announcement made by the Chief Minister as she could not pay the fees in a private college, the judge said that she may be considered for admission on merit, taking into account the surrender of seats in the All India Quota for MBBS/BDS admission.
The judge also directed the authorities to consider the plight of Soundarya, who had studied in a Government Higher Secondary School up to Class X.
Not allowing her to participate in medical counselling on the ground that she studied Class XI and Class XII in a private school may not be correct, the judge said.
Hearing another case filed by a medical course aspirant, G. Gowsalya, who missed the counselling as she could not keep a tab on it due to distortion in network connectivity, the judge said that her plight should be considered as depriving a meritorious student of a medical seat would amount to losing a good doctor in the future.
In another case of a medical aspirant D. Arun, the judge, took into account that he had studied in an aided school that was ‘managed’ by the government and said that therefore his case too can be considered for admission. In all the cases, the judge said that one medical seat each can be kept vacant so that it can be considered for admission on merits.
