NEET | Medical Seat National Resource; Seat Rendered Vacant Due To Fraud Must Be Allotted To Next Candidate : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has upheld the admission of a NEET-UG candidate to a seat that became vacant after the originally selected candidate was found to have secured admission using a forged marksheet. The Court observed that when a seat falls vacant under such circumstances, authorities are duty-bound to allot it to the next eligible candidate in merit. A bench of Justice J.K. Maheshwari and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar dismissed the National Medical Council's appeal against the Himachal Pradesh High Court's decision to restore the seat to the Respondent No.1 at Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru Govt. Medical College in Himachal Pradesh, who was denied the benefit despite being the next candidate in line, after the seat remained vacant on account of forgery committed by the selected candidate in his scorecard. The Court stressed that restoration of the vacant seat cannot be denied to the next in line candidate, as it would be tantamount to wastage of a precious medical resource due to administrative lethargy. “It cannot be sufficiently underscored that a medical seat in a Government Institution is not merely an individual gain for a private candidate, but is also a precious resource for our nation that is held in public trust by the regulatory authorities. In an eventuality, when such a seat is rendered vacant through fraud, an obligation is cast upon the authorities to restore that seat to the next eligible candidate as per the merit list. To allow a seat to remain wasted due to administrative inaction or lethargy, is a subversion of the very purpose of the NEET-UG examination that was to facilitate systematic organization of admissions in government medical institutions.”, the court observed.The case arose from the 2022 NEET-UG examination, where the respondent no.1 secured 508 marks in the General category. During the second round of counselling, two candidates were granted admission to government medical colleges in Himachal Pradesh. However, their admissions were later cancelled after it was discovered that they had submitted forged scorecards. This led to vacancies in MBBS seats at Indira Gandhi Medical College and Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru Government Medical College. Despite being next in merit, the respondent was not granted admission. Although the university promptly informed the NMC about the vacancies on January 17, 2023, the NMC responded only in June 2023, refusing permission on the grounds that the admission deadline (December 29, 2022) had expired. Aggrieved by the NMC's decision, the candidate filed a Writ Petition before the Himachal Pradesh High Court, which granted her relief, leading to the NMC's appeal before the Supreme Court.Affirming the High Court's decision, the bench relied on S. Krishna Sradha v. State of Andhra Pradesh & Others, (2020) 17 SCC 465 to note that “in exceptional cases where a candidate has been prompt in approaching authorities and delay is entirely attributable to the failure of the authorities to detect fraud, irregularity or respond to queries, as is the situation in present case, equity requires that admission be granted to such a candidate in next academic year possible.”Applying the law laid down in S. Krishna Sradha (supra), the court in exercise of its power under Article 142 of the Constitution ordered the Appellant to grant the admission to the Respondent No.1 in the next academic session i.e., 2026-27, upon modifying the High Court's order to grant the benefit from 2023-24, owing to the fact that more than three years of the Respondent No.1 was stalled because of the vexatious litigation of Appellant-Council. “…the High Court has rightly analyzed the entirety of facts and circumstances as mentioned hereinabove and found that the University as well as the NMC both remained silent and allowed those seats to go vacant...we modify the direction as issued by the High Court for grant of admission for the year 2026-2027 instead of 2023-2024 while not interfering with other terms and conditions as directed by the High Court.”, the court said.Cause Title: THE SECRETARY NATIONAL MEDICAL COMMISSION VERSUS SANJANA THAKUR & ORS.Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 330Click here to download OrderAppearance: For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Gaurav Sharma, Sr. Adv. Mr. Prateek Bhatia, AOR Mr. Dhawal Mohan, Adv. For Respondent(s) : Ms. Madhurika Sekhon, Adv. Mr. Brajesh Pandey, Adv. Ms. Kanchan Ku. Jha, Adv. Mr. Paramhang Sahani, Adv. Mr. Shabhindra Tripathi, Adv. M/S. Brajesh Pandey & Associates, AOR Mr. Vaibhav Srivastava, A.A.G. Ms. Sugandha Anand, AOR Mr. Bhargava Ravikumar, Adv.

NEET | Medical Seat National Resource; Seat Rendered Vacant Due To Fraud Must Be Allotted To Next Candidate : Supreme Court

Yash Mittal

To allow a seat to remain wasted due to administrative inaction is a subversion of the very purpose of the NEET-UG exam, the Court said.

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