Medical aspirants knock on court’s door over nativity issue

Justice S Vaidyanathan, before whom a batch of writ petitions came up in this regard on Tuesday, directed the Additional Advocate General C Manishankar to clarify on individual petitions and the basis on which those were rejected. 

M Goutham, who scored 424 out of 720 in NEET, a percentile score of 95.23, had finished his schooling from Kottayam in Kerala. But since his ancestral abode was Dharapuram, he had submitted the nativity certificate pertaining to Tamil Nadu and had duly filled the application. 

He further contended that as per the prospectus issued by the Secretary, Selection Committee, Directorate of Medical Education, Chennai he had submitted all relevant certificates pertaining to Tamil Nadu students pursuing their schooling from sixth to 12th in other states. He had submitted a copy of the ration card of his parents as well. 

The student’s counsel, CSK Satish argued that the provision of nativity rule was meant to ensure the eradication of dual nativity and in this case the student had marked his nativity as Tamil Nadu and the Village Administrative officer has confirmed that his office has not issued any community certificate or nativity certificate either to him or his father. He had not applied in Kerala and now being rejected in Tamil Nadu has put him in a fix. 

Similar applications from students who studied in Maharashtra and West Bengal also surfaced. However, AAG on noting that decisions on such cases are a matter of policy to curtail the issue of dual citizenship, said the students ought to have gone by the prospectus. 

He noted that in the case of Gowtham there remains no scope of a person being on temporary resident in another state for 20 years. The batch of petitions are set to be taken up for further hearing on Wednesday.