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Rachit Sinha & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2018 INSC 452Decided 3 May 2018
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 357 of 2018
Justice S.A. Bobde · Justice L. Nageswara Rao

Background

The Medical Council of India changed the counselling rules for postgraduate medical admissions (NEET-PG) for 2018-19 midway through the admission process via a notice dated 9 April 2018, making candidates who had skipped or resigned from their first-round seat eligible for the second round of counselling: a change meant to curb "seat blocking" by candidates gaming the system. Petitioners who had already secured first-round seats objected, arguing the rule change increased competition for the second round and was unfair to introduce after the process had started; they also objected to being pressured to resign from their first-round seats. The Supreme Court had earlier (20 April 2018) granted an interim stay letting them retain their first-round seats and halting reversion of unfilled All India Quota seats to the State Quota.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the Medical Council's rule change did not violate any legal right of the petitioners: a reduced chance of admission due to increased competition is not itself a rights violation, and the change was justified by genuine evidence that around a thousand candidates had been gaming the system by blocking and later vacating seats. Since the petitioners had already participated in the second round and that round for the All India Quota was complete, the Court found no reason to interfere further and declined to entertain the writ petitions. It vacated its earlier interim stay on reversion of unfilled seats, and issued a revised timetable directing States/institutions that had wrongly run their State-quota counselling without waiting for reverted seats to redo that round, with fresh deadlines through mid-May 2018.

Lesson Learnt

Regulatory bodies can revise admission procedures mid-process to close loopholes being exploited by some candidates, and a resulting increase in competition for remaining seats is not, by itself, a violation of any candidate's legal rights.

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

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