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Dr. Atharv Tungatkar and Ors. vs. The Medical Consulting Committee and Ors.

Not available · 2022 INSC 640Decided 10 Jun 2022
Not available
M.R. Shah · Aniruddha Bose

Background

After NEET-PG-2021 counselling (delayed by COVID-19 and litigation over OBC reservation) was completed through eight to nine rounds covering All India Quota and State Quota seats, about 1,456 of the roughly 40,000 seats remained vacant: most of them in non-clinical courses that typically go unfilled every year. Candidates who had participated in the counselling process but did not get a seat, including the petitioners in this writ petition, approached the Supreme Court asking for a "Special Stray Round" of counselling to be conducted so they could claim the vacant seats. The Union of India and the Medical Counselling Committee opposed this, having already closed the counselling software, refunded security deposits, and begun the admission cycle for the next year, NEET-PG-2022.

Decision Breakdown

The Court relied on its own earlier precedents: Supreet Batra v. Union of India (2003) and Education Promotion Society for India v. Union of India (2019), which held that some seats going vacant every year (mostly unpopular non-clinical courses) is not, by itself, a ground to reopen or extend a concluded admission schedule, since medical admissions cannot be an endless process and mid-session admissions compromise the quality of medical education. Since the counselling schedule had already been extended once for additional seats, the software was shut down, refunds issued, and the next year's admission cycle was already underway, the Court held the government's decision not to hold another round was not arbitrary and was in the interest of medical education and public health. All four connected writ petitions and special leave petitions, including this one, were accordingly dismissed with no order as to costs.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not reopen a court-approved admission/counselling schedule merely because some seats remain vacant at the end of it; a fixed timetable for professional education admissions is treated as necessary to protect the integrity of the education system and public health, and equitable sympathy for individual candidates does not override that.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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