SC expresses concern over unfilled NEET-PG seats, says ‘Playing with future of doctors’

|HT|

The Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed concern over the 1,450 post-graduate medical seats going vacant this year despite the country facing a dearth of medical professionals, telling the Centre that “You are playing with the future of doctors.” The court has sought an affidavit to be filed by the Centre and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) during the course of the day explaining why these seats were not filled by conducting an additional mop-up counselling round. The court has also warned that it may consider asking the Centre to pay compensation to the doctors for playing with their lives and future.

A bench of justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose said, “Even if a single seat is vacant, it should be filled and not allowed to be wasted…If students are not given admission, we will pass compensation orders against you for playing with the lives and future of doctors.”

The court was hearing a petition filed by seven doctors seeking a special stray round of counselling for 1,456 vacant medical PG seats that remained unfilled after the last mop-up counselling round for NEET-PG 2021-22 ended on May 7. “What will you (Centre) get by keeping the seats vacant when you require so many doctors and super specialists? You should have conducted another mop-up round. Is there any responsibility felt by you? Every time the court has to intervene. Why are you waiting for the court’s order? This is a serious matter concerning the future of doctors. You are playing with their futures and there is a dearth of doctors in our country,” the bench said.

What further angered the court was that no law officer appeared for the Centre despite the court directing the petitioner on Monday to serve a copy on the Centre and additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati. A lawyer appearing for the Centre told the court that ASG Balbir Singh was to appear but he is in personal difficulty and cannot appear. The counsel told the court that counselling for NEET-PG 2021-22 got delayed this year and concluded only on May 7, much beyond the timeline prescribed by the Supreme Court in a separate case. The bench said, “This is a very important matter concerning medical admissions. The Union government is not run by a single officer. Tell him to remain present tomorrow.” The court directed the Centre and MCC to file responses within the end of this day and posted the matter for hearing on Thursday.

The Centre told the court that any further mop-up counselling round will have cascading effect on the counselling schedule for NEET-PG 2022, the results of which are already out and counselling will begin in July.

The court indicated to the Centre that another bench of the top court had in March this year set aside the mop-up counseling for NEET-PG 2021 and said, “Nobody is following timelines. At least, the Medical Council is not following timelines.” The Centre’s lawyer told the court that the March order was passed for counselling to 146 newly added seats after the second round of counselling got over. Referring to the same, the bench observed, “You are giving a chance for corruption in admissions by adding new seats.” Saying that it did not wish to comment on the case as it was already decided by the top court, the bench remarked, “Why during the midst of counselling, you are adding seats. There must be some cutoff beyond which no further addition should be there.’

The court at one point during the hearing was so exasperated by the government that it sought personal presence of director general of health services during the hearing on Thursday. However, the order of the court did not mention the same.

The petitioners relied on a May 11 communication received under the Right to Information Act (RTI) from the Centre informing about the vacant medical PG seats across government and private medical colleges after completion of mop-up counselling round for All India quota (AIQ) seats and state quota seats on May 7. According to the RTI response, there were 1,456 PG seats that still remain to be filled up across all categories (reserved and unreserved) of seats. The petitioners urged the court to direct the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to conduct a special stray round off counselling to enable a fresh chance for those doctors who qualified NEET-PG 2021 but could not get admission after the completion of the mop-up counselling round.

“It is pertinent to note that occupying remaining seats (on the basis of merit) works in the interest of both the college as well as candidates. While the college would refrain in incurring heavy losses in each vacant seat, the candidates will also lose a seat, which they are otherwise deserving of,” the petition said.

The petitioners added that such concessions were made in the recent past considering the special situation caused by the pandemic in the past two years. On April 18, 2022 MCC conducted a special stray round of counselling for 323 vacant seats in undergraduate (UG) counselling. “This is a practice that has been followed by MCC previously wherein Special Stray Rounds for UG and PG have been conducted in order to ensure that seats don’t go vacant. However, this wasn’t followed this year,” the petition alleged. They argued that on May 9, a mop-up counselling round was ordered by the top court in NEET-SS (super specialty) counselling to fill up 940 vacant seats. Following the RTI response on vacant PG seats, the petitioners who were left without a seat got a ray of hope and thus approached the court to seek a fair chance for admission along with similarly-placed candidates.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)