The apex court was hearing pleas filed by medical students seeking a special stray round of counselling to fill vacant postgraduate (PG) medical seats under the All-India Quota (AIQ) in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test 2021 (NEET 2021).
The pleas sought directions to be issued to the Central government to disclose the number of vacant AIQ seats after an earlier stray counselling round.
The plea filed through advocate Milind Kumar, instructed by Dubey Law Associates, stated that the petitioners had participated in rounds 1 and 2 of AIQ Counselling and State quota counselling which was followed by All India mop-up and State mop-up rounds. However, they could not secure seats in any of the rounds till date.
However, through responses to a Right to Information (RTI) application, the petitioners got to know that there are still vacant seats under the AIQ. Subsequently, representations were made to concerned authorities to conduct an additional stray round in the interests of students and colleges, but to no avail, the plea added.
The plea, therefore, asked that the top court to issue a writ of mandamus to:
a) to direct respondent, Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to provide the exact number of vacant seats after the conduct of stray vacancy round of AIQ;
b) to direct respondent to conduct a special stray round of counselling to allow the candidates to participate for the vacant seats which are available after the conduct of stray vacancy round of AIQ;
The plea pointed out that similar stray rounds were conducted for undergraduate medical seats and hence not doing it for PG courses is unjust and arbitrary.
Source: Barandbench
