 "After Tamil Nadu & K'taka, Bengal scraps NEET, to hold own medical entrance exams")
A day after the Supreme Court pronounced its judgment on the NEET-UG row, West Bengal on Wednesday passed a resolution to scrap the exams over distrust of the National Testing Agency.
The Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government has moved to replace the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test with its own state-run medical exams for students who wish to pursue a career in medicine.
While passing the resolution in the state assembly, West Bengal’s Education Minister Bratya Basu said that they were never in favour of conducting an all-India examination. The resolution also slammed the NTA over its inability to conduct free and fair entrance tests.
Basu said, “When the exams were handed over to the Centre in brazen step of dismantling the federal structure, there were protests from our side. The then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi had said that NEET exams should not be handled by the Centre.”
WB joins TN, K’taka
With this, Bengal has joined the ranks of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to ban the exams in their respective states.
The first state to do so was Tamil Nadu which unanimously passed a resolution against NEET in the assembly. The resolution allowed state governments to undertake medical admissions based on class 12 marks, as was done before NEET’s implementation.
Earlier, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP K. Kanimozhi reiterated the demand to “exempt” Tamil Nadu from NEET, conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for medical admissions across the country.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“Tamil Nadu has been consistently saying that we do not want NEET. Now it is proved that NEET is not a fair examination, and students are losing so much because of NEET,” Kanimozhi said.
Meanwhile, in Karnataka, the cabinet, earlier this week, approved a proposal to scrap the medical exams in the state. It is, however, awaiting passage in both the houses of the assembly.
The NEET exam must be scrapped immediately and union governement must allow states to conduct their own exams. Karnataka has built colleges but NEET exam is benefitting North Indian students and depriving our own students. We all have to unitedly fight against this,” Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said.
What did the SC judgment say?
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected cancelling of NEET UG 2024 saying that there was no material to indicate that the paper leak was systematic and affected the sanctity of the entire medical entrance examination.
“We are of the considered view that ordering the cancellation of the entire NEET UG 2024 exam is neither justified on application of settled principles propounded by the decisions of this court (nor) on the basis of material on record,” Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud said.
The apex court said that if it would have ordered re-examination, it would have lead to serious consequences affecting more than 23 lakh students, disrupting their academic schedule and causing a cascading effect in the coming years.
With inputs from agencies
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