The Supreme Court in the case Astha Goel v Medical Counselling Committee observed and. dismissed the plea seeking a Special Stray Round of Counselling for NEET-PG 2021, after the conduct of a stray vacant round of AIQ, to allow the candidates to participate for vacant seats available. The Bench comprising of Justice MR Shah and the Justice Aniruddha Bose observed and said that it cannot be considered as arbitrary, when a conscious decision has been taken by the Medical Council of India and the Union Of India for not conducting any Special Stray rounds of counselling. The Bench added that Petitioners are not entitled to relief, Granting the relief may affect the medical education and Health as the Quality of medical education cannot be compromised which affects public health. The petition was filled by the Doctors who appeared in NEET-PG 2021 and the doctors participated in rounds 1 and rounds 2 of All India Quota (AIQ) Counselling and the State Quota Counselling, which was being followed by State Mop-Up Rounds and the All India Mop-Up Rounds. The top Court had reserved its order on the plea on Thursday. There must be a limit to the process and if the seats remain vacant even after 8 or 9 rounds of counselling, then the students cannot claim rights after 1.5 years, the bench observed. There cannot be any compromise with education. On that the court is very sure, the court further stated that suppose you’re hungry for 6 months, can you eat everything in 1 day? NO. Education is like that. It’s a 3-year course and no compromise can be made in that. the Top Court had come down heavily upon the Medical Counselling Committee, the court stated that leaving 1456 seats in NEETPG vacant not only puts aspirants into difficulty but also leads to dearth of qualified doctors. The vacation bench, while adjourning the matter permitted the authority to file its affidavit during the course of the day explaining the position of the vacant seats & why they were not filled in. It was informed by the MCC that the software which was being used for conducting NEET-PG 2021 online counselling was now being closed and hence, it could not possibly fill 1,456 vacant seats by conducting a Special Stray Round of counselling, in the affidavit submitted before the top court. Furthermore, it was submitted that the counselling process for two academic sessions, i.e., 2021 and 2022, could not run concurrently. the petition has been filed through AOR Milind and the Dubey Law Chambers represented the petitioner.
