NEET-PG 2024: SC asks Centre, others to respond on plea for fresh counselling

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought responses from the Centre, the National Medical Commission and others on a plea seeking fresh counselling of all India quota (AIQ) round 3 of NEET-PG 2024.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K Vinod Chandran issued notice on the plea for the responses and posted the hearing on February 7.

The petitioners, who are eligible for NEET-PG 2024 counselling, said round 3 of AIQ counselling for NEET-PG started before round 2 of counselling was concluded in certain states.

The plea, drawn by advocate Tanvi Dubey, said petitioners were aggrieved by the clash in the counselling schedule for AIQ and state quota. It said several candidates from the state quota who were otherwise ineligible to register for AIQ round 3, got a chance to register and block a seat in AIQ round 3.

The plea said when the state round 2 counselling opened, they had an option to choose between the best option and leave the AIQ seat if they were getting 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 which were blocked by the candidates from the states whose round 2 did not commence earlier," the plea said.

It said the seats blocked by them were not available to the other candidates including the petitioners.

"If the AIQ round 3 would have been conducted after the state round 2 counselling for all states was concluded, a group of candidates would not have gotten an undue advantage of blocking a seat in AIQ round 3 and leaving it later while participating in state round 2," it said.

The plea claimed the medical counselling committee conducting the AIQ round 3 counselling before the state round 2 was concluded led to blocking of seats by candidates from Madhya Pradesh where round 2 of the state counselling had not concluded by then.

It said blocking of seats led to a situation in which many meritorious eligible candidates end up losing the seat.

The plea alleged the act of respondents was inconsistent with the schedule of NEET-PG counselling laid down by the apex court.

It said all the other states except Madhya Pradesh were done with round 2 counselling before the result of AIQ round 3 counselling.

"The act of depriving the candidates with the seat for which they are otherwise eligible is violative of their fundamental right guaranteed under Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution," it said.

The plea sought directions to the medical counselling committee to cancel the AIQ round 3 of NEET-PG 2024 counselling and to conduct it afresh in view of the anomalies in the counselling process.

Alternatively, the plea sought directions to conduct a fourth round of counselling for the left over seats which were blocked by candidates from states where round 2 of state counselling was not concluded, and to provide an option to candidates who were eligible for AIQ round 3 to register for stray round of NEET-PG 2024 counselling.