New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea for cancelling the all India quota (AIQ) round 3 of NEET-PG 2024 counselling and to conduct fresh counselling. The matter came up before a bench comprising Justices B R Gavai and K Vinod Chandran.
During the hearing, a counsel, representing the National Medical Commission (NMC), contended before the bench that any such direction from the court would have a cascading effect in all the states. The counsel said: "In case anything has to be done now, it will have a cascading effect in all the states because students have already taken part in the counselling”. The counsel stressed that there was a schedule for the admission to the postgraduate courses.
The bench accepted the contention of the NMC and told the petitioners’ counsel that if the court were to entertain a plea filed by three petitioners, then another 30 will move before the court. On February 4, the Supreme Court sought a response from the Centre, the NMC, and others on a plea seeking a direction for fresh counselling of all India quota (AIQ) round 3 of NEET-PG 2024.
The plea said petitioners were aggrieved by the clash in the counselling schedule for AIQ and state quota. The plea contended that round 3 of AIQ counselling for NEET-PG started before round 2 of counselling was concluded in certain states. The plea sought directions to the medical counselling committee to cancel the AIQ round 3 of NEET-PG 2024 counselling and to conduct it afresh in view of the anomalies in the counselling process. The plea argued that several state quota candidates’, who were otherwise ineligible to register for AIQ round 3, got a chance to register and block a seat in AIQ round 3.
The plea said when the state round 2 counselling opened, they had an option to choose between the best option and leave the AIQ seat if they were getting a better seat in the state round of counselling. "This created a grave prejudice to the petitioners and similarly placed candidates since they were deprived of the seats which were blocked by the candidates from the states whose round 2 did not commence earlier," the plea said. The plea said the seats blocked by them were not available to the other candidates including the petitioners.
