Background of the Issue chronologicaly (From reports in NewsMinute, NDTV) On July 18, 2013, the Supreme Court, in a majority judgment, set aside NEET and suggested NEET was against the Constitution. This judgement was delivered 2-1 with Justice Anil Dave (more on him later) the lone judge supporting NEET. Another judge, namely Justice Altamas Kabir who delivered “NEET not required” part of the judgement, retired thereafter. On October 23, 2013, a review petition challenging the judgement was filed by the MCI (Medical Council of India) and the Supreme Court issued a notice. This case changed many hands between October 2013 and March 2016, as many judges either retired or rescued themselves from the case. During the same time, SC set up a new bench called the “Indian Constitutional bench” comprising five judges, and NEET case was assigned to this bench. The biggest irony here is that the one judge who supported NEET - Justice Anil Dave - was the person heading the bench that would re-hear the case. On April 11, 2016 (Jayalalithaa was ruling TN and she was healthy), Justice Anil Dave pronounced the judgement in open court, holding that prima facie there were enough grounds to recall the 2013 judgement (the one that went against his point) and hear the case afresh. Justice Anil Dave then delivered another verdict confirming that NEET should be conducted on April 28. That was election time in TN and the state was given an exemption for one year. The then Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, got an exemption from April 2016 to April 2017. However, Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital in September 2016, and O Panneerselvam (OPS) became the interim Chief Minister in November 2016. At this point, OPS gave his consent for NEET through his Education Minister, Mafoi Pandiarajan. Even after that, the TN government was not public about this, rather they kept everything under wraps. They neither informed nor prepared the students for the impending exam. Jaya passed away in December 2016 and everything changed in TN. DMK along with opposition parties intensified the agitation, asking NEET to be scrapped permanently, as the time was drawing closer for NEET. Repeated false promises were given by almost every Minister in TN and the central government. Most of the crucial time between February and April 2017 was lost by the power hungry AIADMK that split and fought among themselves while students were left in the lurch. Central Ministers like Nirmala Seetharaman in fact went on record saying Centre has approved the notification submitted by TN for one year exemption, and it was just a matter of days. People like Anitha were happy on hearing the news. But nothing happened. Only false promises. NEET was forced on the students, and many who did not prepare failed or scored miserably. And the ones who can afford economically have now joined several private coaching institutes for a second chance next year making it difficult for NEET to be revoked in the successive years. August 22, 2017 Exemption on NEET refused even in State Funded Colleges. Tamil Nadu, which had sought exemption from being bound by NEET for this year, at least in government-funded colleges. It sought to circumvent the Supreme Court's ruling last year for a common medical test by issuing an executive order that exempted students from NEET - the centre suggested it would back the move and the ordinance was cleared by two ministries: Law and Human Resources Development. But centre said it could not support the ordinance, simply because it thought that it would encourage other states to ignore the call for a common entrance exam. Tamil Nadu said that NEET gives an unfair advantage to students from schools that follow the CBSE or national board and makes it tough for students from rural areas to compete with those in cities for limited college seats. Previously, for almost a decade, the Tamil Nadu simply used Class 12 marks to decide medical admissions until the change. This system had kept Medical Education accessible and affordable to all student backgrounds.