VIJAYAWADA: The second phase of NEET counselling is likely to take more time as the officials of NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS) have not issued any notification on the counselling even after a week of High Court judgment. The High Court of Hyderabad issued orders on August 7 to hold para 5 (2) of GO 550 and proceed for further counselling.
The State government is planning to knock the doors of the Supreme Court over the issue. However, no steps have been taken by the State government or the university officials in this regard so far. Meanwhile, the candidates who are eagerly waiting for the second phase of counselling, are facing a tough time as the university officials are yet to issue a notification.
Speaking to TNIE, Nooka Madhu Priya, a medical aspirant from Vijayawada, said, “We are in total confusion. Getting an admission in home State is really good, but the authorities are not giving a clear picture. Meanwhile, other States are almost in their last phase of the counselling process. The officials are not responding to our queries and we are worrying about it.”
In fact, soon after the High Court judgment on GO 550, officials of NTRUHS and the State government had long discussions whether to file petition in Supreme Court or not. At last, the government decided to file a petition in the Supreme Court, but till date there has been no word regarding it. On the other hand, the officials have to finish the admissions process by August 31 as per the instructions of MCI. Yet the university officials are stating that depending on the government decision, they will go for further counselling process.
CV Rao, Vice-Chancellor of NTRUHS said, “The State government wants to go to Supreme Court on the High Court judgment. We are expecting, it would give the orders soon, keeping in view the deadline. Based on the government’s decision, we want to go ahead. We are sure that we can complete the counselling in less than a week once it gets started.”
According to the Medical Council of India (MCI), all the phases of counselling and admission process have to be completed by August 31. If it is not completed by then, all those remaining seats will be left vacant in both government and private medical colleges. If the State government files a petition in the Supreme Court, the verdict should come in at least 10 days before the last date of admissions. If at all the verdict or the order gets delayed, then the counselling process may not get completed as per the MCI deadline, due to which a large number of students may lose the opportunity of getting admission and also the seats will remain vacant.
Seat filling process
Before bifurcation of the State, the then government issued GO RT 550 on seat allotment in engineering and other professional courses on 30-7-2001, stating that the open category seats are to be filled first based on merit, irrespective of reservation category. After the completion of filling the open category seats, reserved seats are to be filled. It also stated that in case if a reserved candidate secures seat in open category on merit basis and leaves the seat for better opportunities in reserved quota, that particular vacant seat has to be filled with a candidate from the same reserved category on the merit basis. This year a total of 13,370 candidates have registered for medical counselling in the State.