The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition by a society of deemed universities seeking direction to extend the deadline of May 31 to fill up 603 vacant seats in Post Graduate (PG) medical and dental courses across the country.
The petition was filed by the Education Promotion Society ofIndia, a registered group of 1,354 educational institutions. A total of 4,561PG seats were available in the academic session 2019-20. A total of 31 clinicaland 572 non-clinical seats were vacant.
A bench comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Surya Kant didnot see any merit in the petition, which sought extension of the deadline forcounselling for stray vacancy round to fill up seats which remained vacantdespite the final round.
On Thursday, the Directorate General of Health Services(DGHS) had opposed the petition referring to it as a dangerous applicationhaving serious implication. If extension was given, then it would set a badprecedent.
“It would also dilute the object of having cut-offdates for admission and would affect all states,” said the DGHS,represented by Additional Solicitor General Vikramjeet Banerjee.
The court observed that though it had the power to extendthe deadline, the larger question was should it do so. The court orally said:”The Supreme Court power has to be excercised in a manner which does notmake the previous orders nugatory.” Later, the court reserved the order onthe issue.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for thepetitioner, contended that all admissions would be made through the merit listof NEET PG, who are on the waiting list, and the court can allocate areasonable time of one week to complete the process. The court replied that itwas well aware that the matter concerned lives of many people, and universitieshad made huge investments.
The DGHS counsel argued that the sacrosanct nature of thecounselling dates should not be disturbed at any cost.
“It is a dangerous plea. Once it is allowed, thesanctity of the cut-off date will be gone,” the counsel submitted in thecourt.
The petitioner cited many universities where seats werevacant — 11 per cent seats in Kaher’s J.N. Medical College, Belagavi, and 28per cent in K.S. Hegde Medical Academy, Mangaluru, were available for fillingup.
The DGHS cited the order passed by the top court in theAshish Ranjan case in 2016 where the court approved the schedule of PG medicaland dental courses.