Petition will not impact Supreme Court order: Dilip Taur

Supreme Court advocate Dilip Taur who filed a petition on behalf of a student from Maharashtra seeking postponement of phase I of NEET from May 1 to July 24 has said the review petition being filed by Maharashtra state may have no impact on the SC order.

Mr Taur has said that while NEET was welcome, the fallout of its immediate implementation could lead to many serious problems among students and suicide could not be ruled out. He attributed the refusal of the SC to entertain his petition as well as similar petitions filed by the Centre on Friday to the absence of medical education minister Vinod Tawde and others at the court.

Referring to the previous case wherein a bench of three judges that comprised the then Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir, Justice Anil Dave and Justice Vikramjit Sen had passed a judgement against NEET, Mr Taur said that Justice Dave was against it but had to go with the majority view. The decision came to be known as the NEET decision.

“It is really surprising that the review of the NEET Decision on April 11 was prompted by the minority view of Justice Dave. The calling of the review by none other than Justice Dave indicates that he feels the views of Justices Kabir and Sen were not valid. This is not a good precedent and is in bad taste,” said Mr Taur.

Referring to the petition filed by him on behalf of a student from Maharashtra, Mr Taur said, “Our petition seeking postponement of the May 1 came up for hearing in the morning and the court received our plea favourably. However, when similar petitions came up for hearing in the afternoon, the court refused to change the Thursday order. I feel that had Mr Tawde and other ministers concerned been present it could have had a different impact,” said Mr Taur.

He criticised Mr Tawde and other ministers for their absence and said, “If there is a natural or manmade disaster all ministers make a beeline for the disaster spot. The NEET decision was a disaster for lakhs of students but none of the ministers thought of being present at the court. Now that the damage has been done, they are planning to file review petitions which I feel will be futile as the grounds on which they are seeking a review are not strong enough,” said Mr Taur.

On Friday evening, Mr Tawde had disclosed the grounds of the review which included existence of a MH-CET to provide a level-playing field for all students, including those from backward and poor families and disadvantage to students from rural parts as they had prepared for the entrance test based on state board syllabus while NEET was based on CBSE board syllabus.

Mr Taur said the review should be based on Article 32 (1) of the Constitution that gives ‘The right to move the Supreme Court by appropriate proceedings for the enforcement of the rights conferred by this Part is guaranteed’ as it makes it mandatory for the SC to review its decisions.

Elaborating on the fall out of NEET, Mr Taur said, “Immediate implementation of NEET will be disastrous for lakhs of students not only in Maharashtra but other states too. The frustration and desperation of students aspiring to get admitted to medical or dental courses could result in unfathomable repercussions, and suicides cannot be ruled out,” said Mr Taur.