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Supreme Court verdict on special round NEET-PG counselling today
The Supreme Court said that when the bench made the observation about medical seats not going waste, the bench did not know that this was the position after 8 or 9 rounds of counselling
The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on a petition seeking a special round of counselling to fill 1,456 post-graduate medical seats going vacant this year but appeared to weigh in favour of the Centre that argued against another round of counselling, saying the delay will impact the medical education to be provided to these doctors.
“Can it be said that for a three-year course, admission can be granted after more than one year has elapsed? Doctors should be well trained,” the bench told a group of doctors led by Astha Goel, who filed the petition on May 20. “There cannot be any compromise with education as it can’t be that they are trained for less than three years considering the impact it has on the health of the people.”
The bench of justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose further said, “We are with you that no medical seats should remain vacant. But for many years, seats have remained vacant. There must be a limit to everything. It can’t be further extended as counselling cannot be a perpetual exercise.”
The bench told senior advocate Rachna Srivastava and advocate Charu Mathur, who appeared for the petitioners, that it will pronounce a detailed verdict on Friday.
The seats had remained unfilled after the last mop-up counselling round for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Post-Graduation (NEET-PG) 2021-22 ended on May 7.
The apex court’s stand on Thursday was a departure from its observations a day earlier, when it remarked that the Centre was “playing with the future of doctors” and threatened to order the government to compensate the petitioners if a single seat was allowed to be wasted.
The bench acknowledged the change, citing the arguments made by the Centre through additional solicitor general (ASG) Balbir Singh, who underlined that the problem was structural in nature and had nothing to do with an additional round of counselling.
Singh informed the court that of the 1,456 vacant seats, almost 1,100 were in private medical colleges, where students do not prefer to take admission due to exorbitant fees. Only 300 seats were vacant in government colleges and majority of them were non-clinical seats, which remain vacant every year as they are meant for those opting for teaching and do not help doctors in their careers. Nearly 1,170 seats of the 1,456 vacant seats fall in the non-clinical category, Singh added.
The Centre’s affidavit filed on Wednesday evening said at least 600 seats remained vacant in 2019 and 2020, and this was not on account of an absence of opportunity to exercise the option but lack of takers for non-clinical seats.
“This is a structural issue and this trend repeats every year. In our experience, looking at the nature of the seats left vacant, not more than 100 seats will be taken even if an additional counselling round is ordered,” Singh told the court at Thursday’s hearing.
The National Board of Examinations (NBE), the agency that conducts the examination, appeared through advocate Gaurav Sharma and further informed the court that in 2021, each candidate got five counselling rounds in all India quota (AIQ) quota and four rounds in state quota.
“If a further round is provided, it will be an unending process, as doctors who have already joined a course will leave their seat thus creating further vacancies,” Sharma said.
Lawyer Rachna Srivastava, representing the petitioners, countered the government, saying an additional round of counselling will only take a single day, adding that admissions closed only on May 7. When seats fell vacant in undergraduate and super-speciality courses in 2021, the Medical Counselling Committee held a mop-up round but this was not done for PG seats, Srivastava told the court.
“When we remarked on Wednesday that seats should not go vacant, we did not know that this was the position after 8 or 9 rounds of counselling. We are still of the view that seats should not go vacant provided sufficient opportunity is given to fill them up,” the bench said.
ASG Singh clarified that mop-up rounds for UG and super speciality seats were conducted when the vacant seats were for clinical posts, mostly in government colleges. The counselling process for NEET-PG 2022-23 will begin in July and the software for the 2021 counselling process had already been closed, Singh added.
With one precious year already gone by, Singh told the court that the PG students admitted this year face the challenge of completing the three-year education in less than two years.
The seven doctors who filed the petition told the court that they were keen to be accommodated for clinical seats vacated by doctors in the earlier counselling rounds.
