E-Paper
‘Playing with future of doctors’: SC to Centre over unfilled NEET-PG seats
The Supreme Court asked the Centre why 1,450 post-graduate medical seats are vacant this year despite the country facing a dearth of medical professionals.
NEW DELHI: “You are playing with the future of doctors,” the Supreme Court told the Union government on Wednesday and expressed concern over 1,456 post-graduate medical seats going vacant this year despite the country facing a dearth of medical professionals.
The court asked the Centre and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to file an affidavit by the end of Wednesday, explaining why these seats were not filled by conducting an additional mop-up counselling round.
“Even if a single seat is vacant, it should be filled and not allowed to be wasted… If students are not given admission, we will pass compensation orders against you for playing with the lives and future of doctors,” a bench of justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose told the Centre.
The strongly-worded observations were made while hearing a petition filed by seven doctors seeking a special stray round of counselling for 1,456 vacant medical PG seats that 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.
“What will you (Centre) get by keeping the seats vacant when you require so many doctors and super specialists? You should have conducted another mop-up round. Is there any responsibility felt by you? Every time the court has to intervene. Why are you waiting for the court’s order? This is a serious matter concerning the future of doctors. You are playing with their futures and there is a dearth of doctors in our country,” the bench remarked.
What further angered the bench was that no law officer appeared for the Centre despite the court directing the petitioners on Monday to serve an advance copy of the petition to the Centre and additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati. A lawyer appearing for the Centre told the court that ASG Balbir Singh was to appear but he is in personal difficulty and cannot appear. The counsel told the court that counselling for NEET-PG 2021-22 got delayed this year and concluded only on May 7, much beyond the timeline prescribed by the Supreme Court in a separate case.
“This is a very important matter concerning medical admissions. The Union government is not run by a single officer. Tell him to remain present tomorrow (Thursday),” the bench said, directing the Centre and MCC to file responses “within the end of this day (Wednesday)” and posted the matter for hearing on Thursday.
Later in the day, the Centre filed an affidavit informing the court about the reason for 1,456 PG seats falling vacant this year. It stated that in 2021, counselling for Diplomate of National Board (DNB) courses was included in Neet-PG 2021 as per a judgment of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2020. Further, the affidavit said that after completion of second round of counselling for AIQ seats, no vacant seat of NEET-PG 2021 was reverted back to the states. Instead, a third (mop-up) and fourth (stray vacancy) round of counselling was introduced beginning this year. The difference this year was huge as in 2019 only 692 seats were vacant while in 2020 this figure was 636, the affidavit added.
The Centre admitted that the delay in counselling was due to the pandemic and no relief could be granted in the present petitions as they have approached belatedly. “The software that was being used for conducting online counselling for 2021 is closed and refund of security deposit for participation in PG counselling 2021 is also initiated,” said the affidavit filed by B Srinivas, assistant director general, DGHS, ministry of health and family welfare. It further added that counselling for two academic sessions cannot run concurrently. The Neet-PG 2022 counselling is to be begin from next month.
The Centre told the court that any further mop-up counselling round will have cascading effect on the counselling schedule for NEET-PG 2022, the results of which are already out and counselling will begin in July.
The court pointed to the Centre that another apex court bench in March this year had set aside the mop-up counselling for NEET-PG 2021. “Nobody is following timelines. At least, the Medical Council is not following timelines,” said the bench. To this, the Centre’s lawyer informed the court that the March order was passed for counselling to 146 newly-added seats after the second round of counselling got over.
“You are giving a chance for corruption in admissions by adding new seats,” said the bench. “Why during the midst of counselling, you are adding seats. There must be some cutoff beyond which no further addition should be there.”
The bench said it did not wish to comment on the case any further as it was already decided by the top court.
The court at one point during the hearing was so exasperated by the government that it sought personal presence of the director general of health services during the hearing on Thursday. However, the court’s order did not mention the same.
The petitioners in the case relied on a May 11 communication received under the Right to Information Act (RTI) from the Centre that informed about the vacant medical PG seats across government and private medical colleges after completion of mop-up counselling round for All India quota (AIQ) seats and state quota seats on May 7. There were 1,456 vacant PG seats across all categories (reserved and unreserved), the RTI response suggested.
The petitioners urged the court to direct the MCC to conduct a special stray round of counselling to enable a fresh chance for those doctors who qualified NEET-PG 2021 but could not get admission after the completion of the mop-up counselling round.
“It is pertinent to note that occupying remaining seats (on the basis of merit) works in the interest of both the college as well as candidates. While the college would refrain in incurring heavy losses in each vacant seat, the candidates will also lose a seat, which they are otherwise deserving of,” said the petition, filed on May 20.
The petitioners added that such concessions were made in the recent past considering the special situation caused by the pandemic in the past two years. On April 18, 2022, MCC conducted a special stray round of counselling for 323 vacant seats in undergraduate (UG) counselling. “This is a practice that has been followed by MCC previously wherein special stray rounds for UG and PG have been conducted in order to ensure that seats don’t go vacant. However, this wasn’t followed this year,” the petition claimed.
They argued that on May 9, a mop-up counselling round was ordered by the top court in NEET-SS (super specialty) counselling to fill up 940 vacant seats. Following the RTI response on vacant PG seats, the petitioners who were left without a seat got a ray of hope and thus approached the court to seek a fair chance for admission along with similarly placed candidates.
