SC Comes In Support Of Resident Doctors’ Demand For NEET-PG Counselling

New Delhi: The ongoing agitation of resident doctors against the inordinate delay in NEET-PG counselling got a shot in the arm as the Supreme Court on Wednesday held their demand as ‘genuine’.

The resident doctors, who have qualified for post-graduate courses, have been protesting the delay in counselling because the matter of reservations is pending in court. The protests have been intermittently going on in various medical colleges of the country, including SCB Medical College in Cuttack and MKCG Medical College Berhampur in Odisha.

The apex court has started to examine the Centre’s request to allow the process,  pending a constitutional challenge to the introduction of reservation for other backward classes (OBC) and economically weaker section (EWS) in all-India quota seats for graduate and post-graduate medical courses.

“We want to bring an end to this uncertainty as there is a genuine demand from the resident doctors,” said a bench of Justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and AS Bopanna which began to hear the petitioners on the short question of allowing counselling for NEET-PG courses.

In October last year, the counselling was stalled after the Centre put it in abeyance pending the legal challenge to a July 29, 2021 order introducing 27% OBC quota and 10% EWS quota in 15% undergraduate medical courses and 50% PG seats under all India quota.

Appearing for the Centre before the bench, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said, “When we made the statement (putting counselling on hold), we did not anticipate this situation. We are at a stage where counselling is stuck and we need to respond to the bona fide demands of resident doctors. Let the stage of counselling get over.”

The petitioners opposed the suggestion and proposed that the July 29 government order should not be given effect for admissions in this admission cycle. Senior advocates Arvind Datar and Shyam Divan, appearing for the petitioners, said the NEET-PG 2022 is to be held in March, and the order of July 29 was passed after the process for conducting NEET-PG 2021 started in February last year.

To this, Mehta said, “As a government, we would not accept any position whereby the OBCs or EWS, whether pre or post this exercise, are deprived of what is legitimately due to them.”

Divan said the petitioners should be given the opportunity to present their concerns as they had concluded their submissions before a three-judge bench, and now there was a change of bench with the exception of Justice Chandrachud. The court allowed Divan and Datar to make brief submissions and posted the matter for Thursday as arguments remained inconclusive.