Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi has come under heat through his dissenting motion against the state government's anti-NEET Bill, which had been on his table for the past five months. The Governor has returned the Bill to the assembly and the reason for the return had put him under more condemnations. The development has annoyed the DMK government, which is sketching out the plan to get the Bill passed as the abrogation of NEET is one of the poll promises of the party. 

On Thursday, amid facing more protests and demands to give his consent for the Bill, the Governor's office said that Governor has sent the Bill back to the Assembly Speaker citing that the Bill is against the interests of the students, especially rural and economically poor students of the state. The return and the reason had spurred agitation against him as the call to take him back has been growing louder even as the ruling government has begun to send the Bill back to the Governor's court. 

The statement from the Raj Bhavan said, "The Hon'ble Governor of Tamil Nadu, after a detailed study of the L.A. (Legislative Assembly) Bill No. 43 of 2021 for admission to undergraduate medical courses seeking exemption from NEET, and the report of the high-level committee constituted by the state government in this regard which is the basis for the bill and also examining the pre-NEET status of social justice in medical admission especially for students coming from socially and economically poor background, is of the opinion that the Bill is against interests of the students especially the rural and economically poor students of the state." 

The statement further read, "Hence, the Hon'ble Governor has returned the Bill to the Hon'ble Speaker, Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on February 01, 2022, giving detailed reasons, for its reconsideration by the House. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in Christian Medical College, Vellore Association Vs. Union of India (2020) also has comprehensively examined the issue especially from the Social Justice perspective and upheld NEET as it prevents economic exploitation of poor students and is in furtherance of social justice." 

As a next move, the MK Stalin administration is working to use one of the options available - sending the Bill back to the Governor. Retired High Court Judge Justice Karpagavinayagam has said that the Bill was formulated based on the report submitted by the state goverment-formed committee headed by former judge Justice AK Rajan, who studied the impact of the NEET on the rural and backward students. He suggested that the national exam can be repealed and the Bill has underlined the measure of admitting the students for medical studies based on their Class 12 marks. 

Karpagavinayagam further said that if the Governor could have taken the AK Rajan committee report into the consideration, he would have found no reason to return the Bill. If the government sends back the Bill for the second time, the Governor has no option other than consenting it and sending it to the President as the Bill is overwhelmingly passed by the Assembly in September 2021. Speaking to The News Minute, Senior Lawyer and DMK MP P Wilson said that the Governor's act of returning the Bill was in defiance of the constitutional powers granted to him. 

He said, "The Governor does not possess the power to examine the Bill or return the Bill. He can forward it to the President for assent. It is only the President who is authorized to examine the Bill and approve or reject it." As the anti-NEET bill has been in a precarious state, Wilson has said that the government also has another person before sending the Bill back to the Governor, firstly the assembly can send its communication to the Governor in which it can say that the returning of the Bill was against the powers earmarked to him by the Constitution. 

As the second move, the assembly can discuss and work out on alerting the Bill and sent it back to the Governor, who will then, with no option, send it to the President. The reports say that it is less likely that the DMK government will modify the Bill as the government tends to have no modification whatsoever in its efforts to completely repeal the NEET from the state. After the press statement from the Governor's Office went viral, the DMK has reacted strongly to his act. In the Lok Sabha, the MPs of the DMK alliance had on Thursday urged the Union government to withdraw the Governor from his post for violating his constitutional powers.