The Supreme Court, on Thursday, June 16, refused to accept pleas seeking directions to the Centre to conduct another round of mop-up counselling for admissions to NEET super-speciality courses for 2021.
A vacation bench, comprising Justices AS Bopanna and Vikram Nath, did not agree to the submissions made by two doctors that one more mop-up round of counselling must be conducted for admissions in the super-specialty courses, as stated in a report by PTI. Around 92 new seats were added later which were not available to them in the first two rounds of counselling.
“At this stage, we see no reason to alter the order (of May 9),” the Bench told senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who said that 92 extra seats were suddenly added in the mop-up round and, as a result, people with ranks below us were allotted seats that were not available to us. However, the bench said, “At this stage, we do not want to modify it. Sorry.”
The top court, on May 9, refused to reduce the cut-off percentile required for admission to the NEET super-specialty courses. It said that doctors have to deal with a patient's life and merit cannot be disregarded. The Bench also said that a decision has been taken not to lower the percentile, which is a matter of academic policy and it cannot be faulted. The reasons put forth by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare cannot be regarded as extraneous and arbitrary “as doctors have to deal with a patient's life and merit cannot be disregarded,” the Bench added.
“Candidates are sufficiently available for undertaking the counselling of vacant seats but the decision to not reduce the percentile is based on not compromising the merit...Question of whether the percentile should be reduced further is a matter of academic policy in the circumstances, it is not possible for the court to entertain a plea for directing the reduction of the percentile,” the Bench had held.
Some of the doctors who insisted on lowering the cut-off percentile had submitted that 940 seats are still vacant for the academic year 2021-22. They contended that these seats will go to waste at a time when the country needs doctors, if the cut-off is not lowered. The Bench had said that the court will have to take note that these doctors were not able to obtain the 50 percentile cut-off and they will be handling the patients in super-specialty categories.
“This court will not like to interfere unless there is manifest arbitrariness,” the Bench had asserted.
