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The Centre on Monday informed the Madras High Court that it shall file its counter affidavit by the end of the day or by Tuesday, to a case filed by BJP State secretary K. Nagarajan challenging the constitution of the Justice A.K. Rajan committee. The State government had constituted the panel last month to study the impact of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) on medical admissions.
Appearing before Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, Additional Solicitor General R. Sankaranarayanan said the Centre’s counter affidavit was ready and that it would be filed in the court either by the end of the day or on Tuesday. He also agreed to serve copies of the counter affidavit on the writ petitioner as well as numerous political parties, organisations and individuals who wanted to get impleaded in the case.
Since the Centre’s counter affidavit was essential to decide the case and also because numerous impleading petitions in support of the committee had been filed, the first Division Bench decided to hear all of them dedicatedly in the afternoon session on July 13. It ordered that the Centre’s affidavit should be filed by July 8 and served on the counsel for the DK, DMK, MDMK, CPI and others who wanted to get impleaded.
The judges said they would not formally allow all of them get impleaded in the case since it might lead to confusion. Nevertheless, all of them would certainly be given the opportunity of a hearing, since the issue was of some importance and all stakeholders ought to be heard, the Chief Justice remarked.
Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram said he had already filed a counter affidavit on behalf of the State government and was ready to argue the case. Senior Counsel P. Wilson, representing a student who wanted to get impleaded, said he had circulated all judgements related to the case. He went on to state that the constitution of a committee on the issue was not new and referred to Justice P. Kalaiyarasan committee’s recommendations which led to the 7.5% reservation for government school students in medical admissions.
In reply, advocate V. Raghavachari, representing Mr. Nagarajan, said: “Yes, there’s nothing new. All arguments against NEET have already been taken into consideration by the Supreme Court and rejected. There’s resistance to NEET only in Tamil Nadu. It is a political game and it must end.” Mr. Wilson retorted saying: “You are a political party and so you will always think in political terms.” Accusing the petitioner of having approached the court in the garb of a public interest litigation petition, he said: “There’s no public interest at all in his case. It is a motivated litigation and I will substantiate it. This is an ideological clash in Tamil Nadu.”
Continuing the arguments, Mr. Raghavachari said: “I am concerned only about legality and not ideology. Anyway, Mr. Wilson can reserve his arguments for July 13.”
Concurring with him, the Chief Justice lightened the mood by quipping: “Absolutely. Both of you can get size 16 boxing gloves on that day.”
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