PIL filed in Madras HC on dual nativity certificate issue

Madurai: A PIL was on Thursday filed in the Madras High Court seeking to quash a Tamil Nadu government order on the use of dual nativity certificates by students from outside for admissions to medical colleges in the state.

The PIL was filed by DMK MLA Palanivel Thiagarajan here seeking to suspend the admission to MBBS courses in the state colleges till the prayer regarding dual nativity certificates was resolved.

The petitioner submitted that the state government has failed to see the consequences of its order dated June 23 which helped the students from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala join the medical colleges in the state, in view of more number of seats.

There is proven case of 34 students from Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh joining the medical colleges in the state using the dual nativity certificates taking despite their low rank in National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) based list, in their respective states, but high rank in Tamil Nadu, he alleged.

Citing an example, the petitioner said Nirmala Anne, who had scored 3129th rank in Kerala and 514th rank in NEET, got admission into Stanley Medical College here, after she secured 160th rank in Tamil Nadu.

"Such admissions should be checked... There should be measures to check admissions using dual nativity certificates," Thiagarajan said.

The state government has framed a rule mandating rural service for medical students for a certain period, he noted.

However, students belonging to other states, who had taken up NEET could not be asked to work in rural areas in this state, he contended.

This aspect also should have been taken into consideration, the petitioner said.