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SC Dismisses Plea Seeking Another Round of NEET PG 2021 Counseling

Paridhi Arya

Published on June 10, 2022 at 15:16 IST

The Vacation Bench of Justice M R Shah and Justice Aniruddha Bose had dismissed the Petition seeking another special round of ‘stray counseling’ for vacant seat of NEET PG-2021.

The Petition was filed by the group of doctors led by Astha Goel and Senior Advocate Rachna Shrivastava and Advocates Milind Kumar and Charu Mathur.

The Court observed that already eight to nine rounds of counseling and already delay of 1.5 years is made for the course if another round would take place, then the interference with stray counseling of NEET PG 2022 will take place.

The decision of Apex Court is not arbitrary action but in the interest of public.

The Court also referred two similar cases and opined that Central Government and Medical Counseling Committee (MCC) should follow the schedule for the Counseling.

The Bench observes that, “The Medical Counselling Committee and the Union of India have to adhere to the time schedule for completing the admission process and the current schedule of NEET PG 2021 which is already behind time schedule… not to have another stray round is in the interest of medical education. There cannot be any compromise on the quality of medical education as it affects public health.”

The Union Government and Medical committee had decided not to conduct more stray counseling as it will disturb the counseling of NEET PG 2022.

Additional Solicitor General Balbir Singh represented Health Ministry submitted that there are total 1,456 seats vacant out of which 1100 are given to the Private institutions and 300 is with the government.

The Counsel further submitted that most of the seats are for non-clinical course which means students enrolling for it will not get jobs as doctor but qualified to teach the students because of which every year such seats are left vacant.

On Wednesday, Court pointed out that after such a pandemic which world faced, the seats should not be left vacant as country cannot afford the shortage of doctors.

But after hearing the argument, the Court held that decision of Union Government and Medical Committee is in public interest and as counseling of NEET PG 2021 should not be interfered with current year counseling.