Plea for fresh NEET-PG counselling rejected by SC
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a petition seeking to invalidate the All India Quota (AIQ) round 3 of NEET-PG 2024 counselling and re conduct it.
The court dismissed the plea after being informed by counsel representing the National Medical Commission (NMC) that any such instruction would now have a cascading effect across all states.
A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, consisting of Justices BR Gavai and K Vinod Chandran, issued the ruling and refused to entertain a number of pleas submitted in the matter, TNIE reported.
“The plea has no merits. We are sorry. We are not inclined to hear,” the bench said. The NMC’s lawyer said that if anything in the case has to be done now, “it will have a cascading effect in all the states because students have already taken part in the counseling.”
Previously, after hearing a petition brought by a group of students seeking new counselling, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Central Government, NMC, and others, directing them to file their respective responses.
The petitioners, who are eligible for the NEET-PG 2024 counselling, claim that round 3 of the AIQ counselling for NEET-PG began in some states before round 2 of the counselling was completed.
The petition stated that when the state round 2 counselling began, they had the option of selecting the best option and leaving the AIQ seat if they received a better seat in the state round of counselling.
“This created a grave prejudice to the petitioners and similarly placed candidates since they were deprived of the seats that were blocked by the candidates from the states whose round 2 did not commence earlier,” the plea said.
According to the plea, the blocking of seats resulted in many meritorious eligible applicants losing their seats. It claimed that the respondents' actions were inconsistent with the Supreme Court's schedule for NEET-PG counselling.
The application process for the NEET-UG started on Friday and will end on March 7. In 2024, a record-breaking number of candidates sat the exam.
The NTA administers the NEET every year for admission to medical colleges. A total of 1,08,000 seats are available for the MBBS course. There are around 56,000 in government and 52,000 in private colleges.