‘Not single seat must be empty,’ says Supreme Court in response to vacant NEET PG seats

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to guarantee that no NEET PG seat goes unused, while criticising the board for “playing with the future” of medical students.

The court stated that no position should be left empty, stating that you are “playing with the future of pupils.” The Supreme Court has also directed the MCC to file an affidavit on the petition seeking to hold a special stray round of counselling to allow candidates to compete for the empty seats left after the All India Quota stray vacancy round (AIQ).

The vacation bench of Justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose directed counsel for the MCC and the Centre to produce an affidavit explaining why seats were empty today during the course of the day.

The court has scheduled a hearing for tomorrow.

During the hearing, the court expressed disappointment that 1,456 seats remained unfilled.

MCC’s lawyer requested more time to prepare an affidavit in this respect. The MCC counsel also stated that 2022 counselling will be postponed, which will have a domino effect.

The judge questioned why there was no streamlining procedure and asked, “Do you realise what the stress level of kids is?”

When the court learned that the MCC was aware of the unfilled seats in May, it queried, “What will you get by leaving seats vacant when we need physicians and super-specialists?”

The court was hearing a petition asking the court to order the respondent—Medical Counselling Committee (MCC)—to hold a Special Stray Round of counselling to allow candidates to compete for empty seats left over after the All India Quota stray vacancy round (AIQ).

Advocate Milind Kumar An Advocate represented the petitioners.

The petitioners appeared in NEET-PG 2021-22 and participated in Rounds 1 and 2 of All India Quota (AIQ) Counselling and State Quota Counselling, which were followed by All India Mop-Up and State Mop-Up Rounds, and were concluded on May 7, 2022 by the Medical Counselling Committee following the All India Stray Vacancy Round.

The petitioners were denied a place in either of the rounds. They stated that the MCC structured the counselling procedure in such a way that all empty seats were not included in the stray vacancy phase of the session.

They claimed that the impetus for filing the current Writ Petition arose on May 11, 2022, when the Petitioners received a response to an RTI they had filed, which stated that “at the time of the online allotment process, all medical/dental post-graduate seats were exhausted, but due to non-joining, resignation, and non-reported, some seats remained vacant.” However, the petitioners claim that no official data has been supplied.

As a result, the petitioners have asked MCC to give the precise number of vacant seats following the stray vacancy round of AIQ and to hold a special stray round of counselling to allow candidates to compete for the vacant seats that remain after the stray vacancy round of AIQ.