New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a batch of petitions seeking a special stray round of counselling to fill 1,456 seats in NEET-PG-21 which have remained vacant after the conduct of a stray round of counselling for All India Quota. A bench of Justices M R Shah and Aniruddha Bose said there cannot be any compromise with the quality of medical education which will affect public health.
The top court said the decision of the government and the Medical Counselling Committee not to allow special stray round is in the interest of medical education and public health. ‘When a conscious decision has been taken by the UOI and MCC for not conducting any special stray rounds of counselling, it cannot be considered arbitrary’, the bench said.
The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) had informed the top court on Wednesday that it has concluded four rounds of online counselling for NEET-PG-21 and it cannot fill 1,456 seats by conducting a special stray round of counselling as the software stands closed. The petitions had been filed by doctors who appeared in NEET-PG 2021-22 examination and participated in Rounds 1 and 2 of the All India Quota (AIQ) Counselling and State Quota Counselling which was followed by All India Mop-Up and State Mop-Up Rounds and concluded on May 7 by the MCC post the All India Stray Vacancy Round.
The court on Thursday observed that eight rounds of counselling had happened before the seats remained vacant. The Court also noted that it is a three-year course and more than half the term has gone and a good amount of the seats are all non-clinical seats. It was remarked that there cannot be any compromise with education. Additional Solicitor General Balbir Singh, appearing for the Centre and Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) submitted that classes have already started in February and it will have a detrimental effect if someone will take classes after 6 to 8 months in these courses.
The apex court had earlier expressed dismay over vacant seats. ASG Singh submitted that the vacant seats were mostly non-clinical. He explained that in non-clinical seats one can be an educationist but cannot be a doctor. ASG submitted that when it comes to depositing the fees, none takes them up. The ASG said that out of 1,456 seats, 1,100 seats are in private institutions and 300 are in government colleges. He further submitted that in private colleges, fees are too high.
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