SC notice to six states on vacant medical seats

The Supreme Court on Thursday sought response from Delhi, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, on an allegation that they were not disclosing the exact number of vacant seats in PG courses in their medical colleges, affecting prospects of desirous candidates.

A vacation bench of Justices H L Gokhale and Ranjana Prakash Desai issued notices to these six states on a petition filed by Esha Karwase.The admission to PG courses are undertaken through all India quota and state quota in all state colleges except in Jammu and Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh.

Senior counsel Indu Malhotra, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the states had failed to declare the total number of vacant seats in their colleges affecting chances of candidates seeking admission through all India quota. The petitioner sought the apex court to direct those states to disclose the vacant seats and to the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) to conduct the fourth round of extended counselling to fill up the seats.

The admission, through the all-India quota seats, are done on the basis of merit in all-India entrance exam for MD/MS/PG Diploma and MDS courses conducted by the AIIMS. 

As the admissions are done through various rounds of counseling, the state colleges don’t declare the seats promptly that fall vacant due to students leaving seats due to available better options, affecting the chances of other candidates. The petitioner said some states did not complete their 2nd round of counselling this year so that the vacant all India quota seats get added to the state quota by default. Under the rules if the all-India quota is not filled it would revert back to the respective state quota.

“This illegal, unconstitutional and arbitrary act of the states has resulted in the meritorious candidates like the petitioner to suffer and has dissipated the objective of resorting to the online counselling process whereby it was intended that the said process would ensure better utilisation of the All India quota and minimise the wastage of the seats,” the petition stated.