1,456 seats vacant: SC asks why Centre is playing with med students' lives

Noting that 1,456 medical seats were not filled during the 2021-2022 session, the Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) and the Centre "why they were playing with the lives of medical students" by not conducting mop-up counselling sessions to fill the seats.

A bench of Justices M R Shah and Aniruddha Bose asked why the MCC was keeping the seats vacant when there is a shortage of doctors across the country. “We need doctors and super-speciality professionals in the country. Do you know how much stress the students in the country have?”

The bench asked the MCC to fill the seats, failing which an order might be passed to compensate the students affected by the vacancies.

The petitioners(seven doctors) had moved the court after receiving a reply to their Right to Information Act(RTI) application about vacant medical PG seats across government and private medical colleges after completion of the mop-up counselling round for All India Quota (AQI) seats and state quota seats. According to the RTI response, 1,456 PG seats were still vacant in reserved and unreserved categories.

The judges also commented on the lacklustre attitude of the Centre, saying that not one law officer was present during this hearing. “The Union government is not run by a single officer. Tell the Additional Solicitor General to be present tomorrow(Thursday),” the bench said.

The apex court told the Centre and MCC to file their responses by the end of the day.

Meanwhile, the Centre’s counsel asked for a day, saying the order will delay the counselling for the next session to which the bench said, “Who is responsible for this delay? We will not entertain this request."

The court said that another bench of the apex court had set aside the mop-up counselling for NEET-PG 2021. “The Medical Council is not following timelines,” the bench said.

The Centre’s counsel said the March order, mentioned by the bench, was regarding counselling to 146 newly added seats after the second round of counselling was over. The bench expressed displeasure over adding new seats when the counselling was already over. “You are encouraging corruption by adding seats amid counselling. No further addition of seats should be there beyond a cutoff,” it said.

The petitioners had urged the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to conduct a special stray round of counselling for doctors who have qualified for NEET-PG 2021 but could not get admission after the mop-up counselling round. “The candidates will lose a seat, which they are otherwise deserving of,” the petition said.

The petitioners said concessions such as special counselling were given in the past. “The MCC previously conducted special stray rounds for UG and PG counselling to ensure seats don’t go vacant during the pandemic. However, this wasn’t followed this year,” the petition said.

The matter has been posted for Thursday.