SC rejects plea seeking time to fill up PG vacant seats

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea by deemed universities and private colleges to grant them time beyond the deadline of May 31 to fill up 603 vacant seats in Post Graduate medical and dental courses, saying the time schedule must be followed, otherwise it would open a Pandora's box.

A bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Surya Kant said the seats lying vacant was not a ground to grant an extension of time to fill up those seats.

The court did not find any merit in the petition filed by the Education Promotion Society of India, a registered group of 1354 educational institutions, for the extension of counselling date for stray vacancy round. It cannot be helped if seats still remained vacant even after three rounds of counselling including a mop-up one, the court said.

Out of 603 seats lying vacant, only 31 were in clinical subjects and the vast majority (572) was in non-clinical subjects. There was no material to show as to what's happening with the remaining 400-500 seats, while the society claimed as many as 1000 seats were vacant, noted the court.

“Every year a large number of non-clinical seats remain vacant because many graduate doctors do not want to do post-graduation in non-clinical subjects,” it said.

The bench stressed, “If we permit violation of schedule and grant extension, we shall be opening a Pandora’s box and the whole purpose of fixing a time schedule and laying down a regime which strictly adheres to the time schedule will be defeated.