Supreme Court rules out special round of counselling in NEET-PG

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said the decision of the Centre and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) not to have a special stray round of counselling for All India Quota in NEET-PG-2021 is "in the interest of medical education and public health" and dismissed a batch of petitions seeking to fill the vacant 1,456 seats.

A vacation bench of Justices M R Shah and Aniruddha Bose said there cannot be any compromise with the quality of medical education which will affect public health.

"The decision of the Union Government and the Medical Counselling Committee not to have Special Stray Round of counselling is in the interest of Medical Education and Public Health.

"There cannot be any compromise with the merits and/or quality of Medical Education, which may ultimately affect the Public Health," the bench said while noting that it was a conscious decision and cannot be termed as arbitrary. The top court said the process of admission and that too in the medical education cannot be endless and it must end at a particular point in time.

The time schedule has to be adhered to, otherwise, ultimately, it may affect medical education and public health, it said. The apex court said the MCC and the Union of India have to adhere to the time schedule for completing the admission process when the current admission of NEET-PG-2021 is already behind the schedule. "When a conscious decision is taken by the Union Government/the Medical Counselling Committee, not to conduct a further special stray round of counselling, it cannot be said that the same is arbitrary," the bench said.