Supreme Court junks plea to add 92 In-Service Quota Seats in NEET SS counselling

New Delhi: Referring to its earlier order on May 9, the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain the prayer for declaring 92 vacant in-service quota NEET SS 2021 seats as newly added seats and making them available for all candidates, even those who had secured admission in earlier rounds of the counselling.

The dismissal from the top court bench comprising of Justices CT Ravikumar and Sudhanshu Dhulia came as it pointed out that in the order dated May 9, 2022, the Supreme Court had allowed mop-up round for all the unfilled/stray/vacant super-speciality seats. However, at that time, the bench had established a condition, clarifying that candidates who had joined seats in the earlier rounds would not be allowed to join.

"...by permitting to conduct mop-up round, the court had directed for conducting mop-up round subject to the condition that any doctor who had joined seats earlier will not be allowed to join. Thus in light of this, we have no hesitation to hold that petitioner is not entitled to seek such prayer in this direction. In short, such WP must fail," noted the top court bench as it denied to entertain the plea.

Such observations came from the Supreme Court bench while it was considering a plea filed by Kaviyarasan M P and others seeking a direction to add 92 "in-service quota seats" of NEET super speciality 2021 surrendered by Tamil Nadu in the newly added seats and make them available to all candidates irrespective of their joining in earlier rounds.

The petitioners were candidates who took admission in the 1st and 2nd round of NEET SS 2021 counselling. Despite holding better merit/ranking in the examination, these candidates could not join Super Spciality courses in Tamil Nadu because of the paucity of seats in the Government institutes. Therefore, they had to join SS courses in Government institutes of other states and also DNB courses, which are considered to be below par when compared to DM/MC courses from renowned colleges in Tamil Nadu.

Also Read: NEET SS 2021 lowered Cutoff: Check out speciality wise MCC seat matrix for DM, MCh, DNB SS courses

As per the latest media report by Live Law, they argued that because of the paucity of time, they had no option but to accept MCC's offer of joining SS courses allotted in the 1st and 2nd rounds of counselling. Therefore, they submitted in the plea, "Now it is reported that about 63 seats of surrendered seats of in-service quota have been filled through alleged mop-up round already held by the MCC. thus 29 seats of surrendered seats of the in-service quota of the State of Tamil Nadu are remaining unfilled. Moreover, the alleged mop-up round held for 92 seats of surrendered in-service quota was conducted disregarding the order dated 09.05.2022. wherein certain candidates of AlQ already holding seats in the 1st and 2nd round of counselling were allowed to participate and were granted up-gradation."

Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati had stated that a mop up round will be held for completing the process of admission to super specialty medical courses, occasioned by the surrender of 92 seats by Tamil Nadu to the AIQ.

The top court had then said, "The mop up round shall be held for all the unfilled/stray/vacant super specialty seats subject to the condition that any doctor who has joined a seat in the earlier round shall not be eligible for participating in the mop up round. Since the mop round is being held, a suitable extension of time may be granted for completing the admissions."