NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a batch of petitions seeking a special stray round of counselling to fill 1,456 seats in NEET PG21 which have remained vacant after the conduct of a stray round of counselling for All-India Quota.
A bench of Justices M R Shah and Aniruddha Bose said there cannot be any compromise with the quality of medical education which will affect public health. The apex court said the decision of the government and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), not to allow special stray rounds, is in the interest of medical education and public health.
“When a conscious decision has been taken for not conducting any special stray rounds of counselling, it cannot be considered arbitrary,” the bench said. The court reserved its order on Friday. Additional Solicitor General Balbir Singh, appearing for the Centre, submitted that classes started in February and now holding classes for another 6-8 months is not feasible. He contended that the NEET 2022 teaching would be compromised if more counselling rounds are conducted. The SC on Wednesday had expressed displeasure over vacancy of seats in medical colleges in session 2021-22.
The Directorate General of Health Services had said that it has concluded four rounds of online counselling for NEET-PG-21 and it cannot fill 1,456 seats by conducting a special stray round as the software stands closed.