[NEET-PG 2021] Supreme Court dismisses petition to hold stray round of counselling for vacant AIQ seats

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the pleas that sought a fresh stray counselling round to fill up vacant All-India Quota (AIQ) seats for postgraduate medical courses after the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET), 2021 [Dr Ashima Goel and ors vs Medical Counselling Committee and ors]..A bench of Justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose said that the decision by the Central government and the Medical Counselling Committee to not have special stray round of counselling was taken in the interest of medical education and public health."There cannot be any compromise with the merits and/or quality of Medical Education, which may ultimately affect the Public Health," the bench said. It emphasised that the medical admission process cannot be endless."It must end at a particular point of time. The time schedule has to be adhered to, otherwise, ultimately, it may affect the medical education and the public health," the order stated.It, therefore, said that the decision taken by the authorities cannot be said to be arbitrary. "The students cannot still pray for admission on those seats remaining vacant after approximately one year of academic session and remaining vacant after eight or nine rounds of counselling," the Bench in its order stated. The Court noted that out of a total of 40,000 postgraduate seats, only 1,456 largely non-clinical seats were vacant. This fact had been earlier taken note of in the decision in Education Promotion Society for India and Anr, the order pointed out. The four pleas 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.The plea had, therefore, asked that the top court to issue a writ of mandamus to:a) to direct respondent, Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to provide the exact number of vacant seats after the conduct of stray vacancy round of AIQ;b) to direct respondent to conduct a special stray round of counselling to allow the candidates to participate for the vacant seats which are available after the conduct of stray vacancy round of AIQ;.The Central government had opposed the plea and filed an affidavit stating that the software for counselling had closed, preventing further rounds to fill up seats.It was pointed out that an extra round to fill up vacant seats at this stage would also disrupt the counselling process for NEET-PG 2022 as the refund of security deposits had already been initiated.Counsel for the MCC submitted before the top court that students cannot be admitted mid-term merely because some seats have been left vacant, relying on the apex court's decision in Supreet Batra & Ors vs Union Of India & Ors..Senior Advocates Rachna Shrivastava and ADN Rao with advocates Avijit Mani Tripathi and Kunal Cheema appeared for the petitioners.Additional Solicitor General Balbir Singh represented the Central government and advocate Gaurav Sharma appeared for the Medical Counselling Committee, and the National Board of Examinations.[Read Order]