Breaking | NEET PG 2021: Supreme Court Dismisses Plea For Special Stray Round Of Counselling

The Supreme Court has dismissed the plea seeking a Special Stray Round of counselling for NEET-PG 2021, to allow the candidates to participate for vacant seats available after the conduct of a stray vacant round of AIQ.A Bench comprising Justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose observed, "When a conscious decision has been taken by the Union of India and Medical Council of India for not conducting any special stray rounds of counselling, it cannot be considered arbitrary."It added,"Quality of medical education cannot be compromised which affects public health. Petitioners are not entitled to relief. Granting the relief now may affect medical Education and health." The petition was preferred by the doctors who appeared in NEET-PG 2021 and participated in rounds 1 and 2 of All India Quota (AIQ) Counselling and State Quota Counselling which was followed by All India Mop-Up and State Mop-Up Rounds. On Thursday the Top Court had reserved its order on the plea. The Bench had observed that there must be a limit to the entire process and if the seats remain vacant even after 8 or 9 rounds of counselling, then students cannot claim rights after 1.5 years. The Judge added, "There cannot be any compromise with education. On that we're very sure. Suppose you're hungry for 6 months, can you eat everything in 1 day? NO. Education is like that. Its a 3 year course." On Wednesday the Top Court had come down heavily upon the Medical Counselling Committee on, stating that leaving 1456 seats in NEET-PG vacant not only puts aspirants into difficulty but also leads to dearth of qualified doctors. While adjourning the matter for Thursday, the vacation bench had permitted the authority to file its affidavit during the course of the day explaining the position of the vacant seats & why they were not filled in. In the affidavit submitted before the Top Court, MCC had informed that the software which was being used for conducting NEET-PG 2021 online counselling was now closed and hence, it could not possibly fill 1,456 vacant seats by conducting a Special Stray Round of counselling. It further submitted that the counselling process for two academic sessions, i.e. 2021 and 2022, could not run concurrently. The petitioners were represented through Dubey Law Chambers and the petition has been filed through AOR Milind Kumar. Case DetailsAstha Goel v Medical Counselling Committee | 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 548 | WP(C) 409 OF 2022 | 10 June 2022Coram: Justices MR Shah and Aniruddha BoseCounsel: Sr. Adv Rachna Shrivastava , Sr.Adv A.D.N. Rao, Adv Avijit Mani Tripathi, Adv Kunal Cheema for petitioners, ASG Balbir Singh for UoI, Adv Gaurav Sharma for MCCHeadnotesNEET-PG 2021 - The decision of the Union Government and the Medical Counselling Committee not to have Special Stray Round of counselling is 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. (Para 10.4)Click here to Read/Download Judgment

Breaking | NEET PG 2021: Supreme Court Dismisses Plea For Special Stray Round Of Counselling

Shruti Kakkar

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