NEET SS counselling 2025: 33 out of 43 seats left vacant in Tamil Nadu
Chennai: As many as 33 of the 43 super speciality postgraduate medical seats reserved exclusively for in-service doctors in Tamil Nadu have remained vacant even after the qualifying cutoff was reduced for the special stray vacancy round.
Last week, the Selection Committee released the details of the 43 vacant seats and conducted the special stray vacancy round online on Saturday and Sunday.
However, only 10 seats were filled this year after the qualifying cutoff was reduced from the 50th percentile to the 30th percentile. The vacant seats include popular specialities like cardiothoracic surgery, paediatric surgery, plastic surgery, neurosurgery, and neurology.
On September 22, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) reduced the qualifying percentile for NEET SS 2025 from the earlier 50th percentile to the 30th percentile after the Supreme Court directed the Centre to reconsider its decision on the NEET SS 2025 cutoff. Based on the court's direction, the Union Government agreed to reduce the cutoff for the proposed special stray vacancy round.
Also read- NBE reduces NEET SS 2025 qualifying percentile, check group specific cutoff scores
The court was hearing a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association, represented by senior advocate P Wilson, who argued that the vacant seats should be returned to the state and the cutoff must be cut to zero percentile. During the proceedings, the Centre agreed to reduce the qualifying score from 50th percentile to 30th percentile and returned the 43 seats for a special state counselling round.
On September 28, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) issued a fresh clarification on the Special Stray Vacancy Round of the NEET SS Counselling 2025, allowing candidates who were allotted seats in Round 1 or Round 2 but did not join their allotted seats to participate in the special round, subject to fresh registration and payment of fees.
"The in-service vacant seats of Tamil Nadu (if any, left vacant after Stray Round of Tamil Nadu state) are expected to be reverted by the state counselling authority of Tamil Nadu on 28 September 2026. Once received, the in- service seats will be added to the seat matrix of All India SS Counselling 2025," the notice mentioned.
Therefore, the latest state-level counselling was held after 43 super speciality seats were returned to Tamil Nadu by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
According to Selection Committee officials, 30 seats remained vacant after the counselling process, while three candidates who were allotted seats did not join their respective colleges. The remaining vacant seats will now be surrendered back to the Union Health Ministry, as per TNIE report.
Background:
The pending legal issue over the 151 vacant super speciality seats in Tamil Nadu halted the NEET-SS 2025 counselling for months. On July 28, 2026, the Supreme Court of India directed the Tamil Nadu government to revert the unfilled 151 NEET SS seats to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) by July 29, 2026, and asked the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to complete the NEET SS 2025 counselling process within two weeks.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that following the direction issued by the Supreme Court, the Tamil Nadu Medical Officers approached the apex court seeking a modification of its order. The Association had requested the Court to direct that all unfilled in-service super specialty seats should be returned to the State of Tamil Nadu if the qualifying percentile is reduced after the second round of counselling.
After this, the Union Government informed the Supreme Court about its decision to return all unfilled NEET SS 2025 seats to Tamil Nadu, which had been transferred to the All India Quota for counselling. Further, the Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati had also told a bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe that the government would also consider reducing the qualifying percentile to help fill the remaining seats.
Submitting a representation to the Union Health Minister, the doctors under the Indian Medical Association Junior Doctors Network (IMA-JDN) mentioned that leaving these super-speciality seats vacant would result in the loss of valuable training opportunities for the current academic session. It would also result in a shortage of trained Super-Specialists in the country, they pointed out.
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