The Madurai bench of Madras High Court has granted conditional bail to one of the students who was arrested in the NEET impersonation case in Tamil Nadu. The court, however, dismissed the bail plea of his father.
On Thursday, the court was hearing the bail plea of the student, who was arrested along with his father by the CB-CID. In the previous hearing, the court had announced that the student’s anticipatory bail plea will be heard as a bail plea since the CB-CID had already arrested the student and his father. During the hearing, the CB-CID had informed the court that suspects who have been arrested so far were not cooperating with the inquiry. Since the boy’s father had filed bail petition in a Theni court, the high court had also stated that if the boy’s father’s bail plea is transferred from the Theni court to the high court, it will be heard along with the bail plea of the student.
Justice GR Swaminathan, who was hearing the petition on Thursday, stated that the boy’s father’s actions have ruined his son’s life and that it was unbecoming of a doctor in government service to indulge in such activities. Observing that there are flaws in the whole NEET system, the judge remarked that the boy’s father has behaved like Vasool Raja MBBS, referring to the movie in which the protagonist gets a medical seat by hiring someone else to write the entrance test on his behalf.
The judge then accepted the bail plea of the student considering his age and his future, and granted him conditional bail, instructing him to appear before the DSP of CB-CID, Madurai at 10.30am every day. The court also dismissed his father’s bail petition.
The CB-CID has, till date, arrested six persons including four students, in connection with the NEET Impersonation scam. The high court, on Wednesday, also ordered the government of Tamil Nadu to re-verify the credentials of all the first-year students pursuing MBBS in the state. The court also ordered the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts NEET, to hand over all the details of the 4,250 students who have been admitted into MBBS courses in Tamil Nadu in 2019.