NEET UG 2021: System cannot be foolproof, says SC, dismissing plea of students requesting to join AIQ mop-up round

The Supreme Court has declined a request of students from the Maharashtra and Gujarat state quota seats to join the fresh round of NEET-UG 2021 mop-up counselling on April 7, Thursday. These students had resigned from the seats awarded to them in the state counselling round. In its order on March 31, where the SC had cancelled the mop-up round conducted by the MCC and ordered a fresh round of counselling for 146 seats, it had also mentioned that this round will not be available to those students who had already landed a seat in the state round of counselling. 

The Bench, comprising of Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Sanjiv Khanna however, did provide some relief to these students by allowing them to rejoin the seats they had resigned by April 9, 5 pm. The petitioners claim that they had resigned from their seats as per the notice issued by the State Common Entrance Test Cell of the Government of Maharashtra on March 17. Those who had resigned by April 22 would be allowed to participate in the AIQ mop-up round of counselling. 

However, with the SC having cancelled that round of counselling and having ordered a fresh one, these students were shut out of the freshly ordered round. Advocates Sanjay Hegde, who appeared for students from Gujarat who were facing the same problem, said that the annual fee for the AIQ round is Rs 1.5 lakh, whereas for the state quota second round seats is Rs 22.5 lakh, and requested the chance to address this disparity by allowing these students to participate in the mop-up AIQ round. However, Judge Khanna said that it is not possible to have a foolproof system and allowing this to happen might create a "domino effect".