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A Supreme Court bench of Justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose today dismissed the plea seeking directions to conduct a special stray counselling round for vacant Post Graduate seats pertaining to the academic year 2021. Court had reserved orders in the case yesterday.

Court noted that the students cannot pray for admission for those seats which are remaining vacant after almost one year and eight to nine rounds of counselling. Court held that when a conscious decision is taken by Union of India and Medical Counselling Committee, it cannot be called arbitrary.

Court also stated that there cannot be any compromise on merits or quality medical education which has impact on public health. Stressing that granting such relief may affect medical education, the court dismissed the plea.

Earlier, ASG Balbir Singh had submitted that the Supreme Court has interfered almost four times in this very session for NEET PG admission. Singh told the court that this is a structural issue and every year 600 or 700 seats go vacant every year. He argued that these seats pertain to non-clinical courses which the students themselves don’t prefer opting and almost 1100 out of the 1456 vacant seats belong to this category. He informed the court that majority of these seats were allotted to students but were not taken up by them.

A representative from the Medical Counselling Committee told the Court that reopening the counselling for the academic year 2021 will affect the counselling for the year 2022. ASG told the court that total number of vacant seats in private institutions are 1100 and 300 in government colleges. It was argued that most of the vacant seats are non-clinical and academic. The ASG said, "They can’t make a career as a doctor by pursuing this course.”

The counsel for the petitioner argued that the counselling was abruptly stopped and the aspirants filed an RTI application seeking for the details of the number of vacant seats. She said, “The reply said that so many seats have been lying vacant because of non-joining, resignation, or unknown reasons.”

On Wednesday, the had bench remarked “ "If the students are not given admission, we'll pass orders for compensation for playing with the future of the Students.”

Case title: Astha Goel Vs Medical Counselling Committee