SC dismisses pleas to hold stray round of counselling for vacant medical PG seats

The apex court on Friday set aside the petitions that sought a fresh round of stray counselling to fill up vacant All India Quota seats for post-graduate medical courses for the National Eligibility Tests (NEET), 2021. 

A Bench of Justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose said that granting a fresh stray round of counselling for vacant medical seats post NEET-PG 2021 could have public health implications.

"8 to 9 rounds of counselling was done and still some non-clinical seats are vacant. Thus, to not have a stray round for this cannot be called arbitrary. Quality of medical education cannot be compromised which affects public health" the Bench stated. The court noted that out of a total of 40,000 postgraduate seats, only 1,456 were still vacant.

The plea filed by medical students seeking a special stray round of counselling had sought directions to be issued to the Central government to disclose the number of vacant AIQ seats after an earlier stray counselling round.

The plea filed through advocate Milind Kumar, instructed by Dubey Law Associates, had stated that the petitioners had participated in rounds 1 and 2 of AIQ Counselling and State quota counselling which was followed by All India mop-up and State mop-up rounds. However, they could not secure seats in any of the rounds till date.

However, through responses to a Right to Information (RTI) application, the petitioners got to know that there are still vacant seats under the AIQ. Subsequently, representations were made to concerned authorities to conduct an additional stray round in the interests of students and colleges, but to no avail, the plea added.