While The Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Act, 2021 (NEET exemption Bill) is pending Presidential assent, a Tamil Nadu MP’s letter on the subject, forwarded by Rashtrapati Bhavan to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), is missing from the records.
Last December, the State Platform for Common School System – Tamil Nadu (SPCSS-TN) had submitted a representation to President Droupadi Murmu drawing her attention to the fact that the NEET Bill, which was reserved for her assent, was pending for many months with the MHA. Subsequently, in January, Madurai MP S. Venkatesan, of the CPI(M), enclosed this memorandum in a letter to the President urging her to call for the Bill from the MHA and grant assent to it without further delay.
In May, SPCSS-TN general secretary Prince Gajendra Babu filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, addressed to the President’s Secretariat, seeking the status of his representation to Ms. Murmu on the NEET Bill as well as that of the MP’s letter. The President’s Secretariat informed him that his representation was forwarded to the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary and the MP’s letter was sent to the MHA.
However, when Mr. Babu sent a petition to the MHA under the RTI Act seeking to know the status of the MP’s letter, the Ministry informed him that the letter forwarded by the President’s Secretariat “was not received in this Ministry”.
Strangely, earlier this month, responding to his RTI Act application, the Tamil Nadu Public (Miscellaneous) Department, which handles the letters addressed to the Chief Secretary, had also said no such letter had been received from the President’s Secretariat.
Wondering how communications from Rashtrapati Bhavan to public authorities could go missing, Mr. Babu has now sent a fresh RTI Act application to the Public Information Officer of the President’s Secretariat, citing the responses of the MHA and the Tamil Nadu Public Department. He has sought to know the whereabouts of his representation on the NEET Bill addressed to the President and the MP’s January letter.
Pointing out that the SPCSS-TN’s representation was meant to draw the attention of the President to the undue delay by the MHA in placing the NEET Bill before her and seek her intervention to expedite the grant of assent, Mr. Babu said, “If the representation is not placed before the President, its very purpose is lost.”
