NEET-PG 2024: Supreme Court junks plea for fresh counselling

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking directions to cancel the all India quota (AIQ) round 3 of NEET-PG 2024 counselling and to conduct it afresh.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K Vinod Chandran passed the order after the counsel appearing for the National Medical Commission (NMC) said any such direction would have a cascading effect in all the states.

"In case anything has to be done now, it will have a cascading effect in all the states because students have already taken part in the counselling," said the counsel.

He said there was a time scheduled for post-graduate (PG) admission.

While dismissing the petition, the bench observed if it would entertain the plea filed by the three petitioners, "we will have another 30 here".

On February 4, the apex court sought responses from the Centre, the NMC and others on the plea.

The petitioners, who are eligible for NEET-PG 2024 counselling, said round 3 of AIQ counselling for NEET-PG started before round 2 of state 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 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.