The Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed its disapproval of the Centre and the Medical Counselling Committee for leaving over 1,400 vacant seats in the NEET-PG course for the academic year 2021-22.
A Vacation Bench of Justices M.R. Shah and Aniruddha Bose said that approximately 1,456 vacant seats would mean a dearth of equal number of qualified doctors for the country.
Justice Shah orally questioned the random increasing of seats during the counselling process and leaving them vacant at the end of it.
“Not a single seat should be left vacant even for a single course. It is your duty... You cannot play with the future of students,” the court addressed the committee’s counsel.
Files affidavit
The Health Ministry, later, in the course of the day, filed an affidavit informing the court that the 1,456 vacant seats of NEET 2021 cannot be filled by "stray counselling" as the software used for conducting online counselling 2021 was already closed and refund of the security deposit for participation in PG counselling 2021 had been initiated. The affidavit said the petitions were filed at a belated stage and would disrupt the whole process for the upcoming counselling for NEET-PG 2022. "Counselling for two academic sessions cannot run concurrently," the government said. There was also a delay in the counselling session due to the outbreak of the third wave of the pandemic.
The Ministry said a total of 2,025 seats were offered in the all-India quota stray vacancy round of PG 2021 counselling. A total of 1.17 lakh candidates had participated. However, 1,456 seats had remained vacant, of which approximately 1,117 seats were for pre-paramedical courses, which were not selected by the candidates during various rounds of counselling.
During the hearing, the court said fluctuations in seats added to the stress of parents and students.
“What do you get in leaving seats vacant when we are in need of doctors?... Why is there no streamlining? Do you know the stress level of the students and parents?” the court asked the committee.
Approximately 1,456 seats have remained vacant since May.
‘Chances of corruption’
The court said the move to hike the number of seats in the middle of the counselling process could even increase the chances of corruption in medical admissions.
“There must be a cut-off,” the Bench said.
The court was hearing a plea seeking a special round of counselling for the vacant seats available under the all-India quota. The petition was preferred by doctors who appeared in NEET-PG 2021.
The committee’s counsel was told to file an affidavit in the course of the day, explaining the facts in detail and the court scheduled the case for hearing on Thursday.
