Madras High Court decries excessive fee charged by NEET coaching centres

Taking strong exception to private National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) coaching centres charging exorbitant fees, the Madras High Court on Monday (November 4) asked how students from poor background could afford an amount ranging between two-five lakh.

The division bench comprising justices N Kirubakaran and P Velmurugan was hearing a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government in response to a query posed by the High Court, on October 24, over-rules and regulations being adhered to by the coaching centres.

The petitioner’s counsel stated that the NEET coaching centres are charging ₹2-5 lakh from each student.

When the government submitted that only 48 students had secured admissions without undergoing coaching and the rest 3033 students, who underwent coaching, got admitted in government colleges, the court observed that this puts the poor and the rural students at a disadvantage.

ALSO READ: NEET impersonation case: HC directs scrutiny of admission forms of medicos

Pointing to the Centre’s assertion that the introduction of NEET was meant to bring down the prohibitive fees paid by the medical students, the bench questioned the logic by referring to the huge expense incurred by medical course aspirants. It further said that all aspirants should be exposed to the same degree of coaching.

In a related case, the bench ordered the submission of fingerprints of students pursuing Medicine in government, private colleges and deemed universities in the state.

It ordered the CB-CID to manually examine the admission forms of medical students studying in deemed universities.

When the National Testing Agency (NTA) informed the court that all the fingerprints of the medical students of government and private colleges will be submitted to the CB-CID during the course of the day, the bench asked as to how much time would be required to make a comparison between the finger prints obtained by the two agencies.

The matter was thereafter adjourned to November 7.