NEET MDS 2021 - Announce Counselling Dates Within One Week; Delay Affects Students' Future, Supreme Court To Centre

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to announce the counselling dates for NEET-MDS 2021 within a week.

A bench comprising Justices DY Chandrachud and Hrishikesh Roy observed that the delay in counselling will lead to serious consequences to the students, who have been waiting after the test results were announced on December 31, 2020.

The Court passed the following order :

"Prima facie we have heard Senior Advocate Vikas Singh for petitioners and ASG Mr KM Natraj appearing for Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. On the request of ASG we grant one week's time for a response to the grievance set out in petition.

We expect that an expeditious decision will be taken within course of next week and court be informed when Union Government proposes to hold counselling for students whose MDS NEET results were declared on 31 December 2020. We hope that the Union Government would be conscious of the serious consequences which will be faced by these students as a result of long delay in completing the counselling".

Courtroom Exchange:

During the hearing, the Bench asked ASG KM Nataraj " these petitioners appeared in NEET MDS and results were declared in December. Merely because NEET PG has been postponed how can you stop counselling for MDS?"

Senior Counsel Vikas Singh appearing for petitioners submitted that, "This exercise has to be done virtually... so this can be done. When you talk about controlled environment you can always have covid appropriate behaviour. There's likelihood of third wave only when there is covid inappropriate behaviour".

Singh added that " I don't understand why one batch has been suffering. And no body is giving any thought of it. I can understand Kumbh mela, election rallies happening or tourists flocking without masks, but these are completely regulated environments. There's no justification why counselling can't take place."

ASG Natraj submitted,  "We want to hold counselling and its our duty. The issue is different, regards to some reservation. Recently Madras High Court passed an order to provide reservation under All India quota and Committee was constituted to work out modalities".

"The Judgement was passed in October 2020 and now we are in July 2021! You will hold counselling for MDS NEET?" the Bench remarked.

"We will, but we have sought clarifications of the judgement (Saloni Kumari judgement)" ASG said.

Justice Chandrachud said "This is all a red herring now that you are now postulating before us. The reason that judgement in Saloni came in 2020, we are in July, if you wanted to move for some clarification you could have immediately thereafter."

"We wanted you to make a statement as to when you are holding counselling. You are just dilly dallying counselling. The Government is just dilly dallying." Justice Chandrachud said.

"You have to hold counselling immediately and complete counselling for MDS NEET students. These are qualified BDS Doctors, they are wasting a year of their lives! As it is they would be on the job, working somewhere in these Hospitals. Allow these doctors to qualify, to get their degrees, they will be in service of patients. Imagine what a loss to India by not allowing a whole batch of PG students to complete their education for 1 year." Justice Chandrachud added.

"File an affidavit within one week, as to when you are going to complete the Counselling." He said.

The Dental Graduates represented by Advocate Tanvi Dubey, have sought directions to conduct a separate counselling for the NEET-MDS 2021 and not wait for NEET-PG counselling for commencement of NEET-MDS 2021 counselling.

While stressing on the undue delay caused in announcing counselling schedule for NEET-MDS 2021, the present plea has been filed through Advocate Charu Mathur seeking directions to MCC to conduct a separate counselling for the NEET-MDS 2021 and not wait for NEET-PG counselling, to commence with NEET-MDS 2021 counselling.

The Petitioners who are NEET-MDS aspirants and hold a BDS degree, have challenged the 'unjust and infinite delay' caused by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) in announcement of the counselling schedule for NEET-MDS 2021. It may be noted that NEET-MDS is the single eligibility cum entrance examination for admission to MDS Courses for the academic session 2021.

The plea has stated that while NEET-MDS usually commences in March every year, this year, even after six months of declaration of the results, there is no update regarding the counselling schedule.

According to the petitioners, any further delay in the announcement of counselling dates will lead to wastage of entire year of the petitioners and thousands of other candidates. The petitioners have argued that there is no reasonable nexus for the counselling of NEET-PG and NEET-MDS to be held together, when the former was postponed and decided not be conducted until 31st August 2021 with a one month notice to prepare thereafter.

While calling the delay arbitrary, unjust and unreasonable, the plea has further stated that delay in announcement of the counselling schedule is also against the MDS Course Regulations, 2007, which mandates the academic session to commence from 1st May and under no circumstances be delayed beyond 31st May

(Case Title : Debraj Samanta and Ors vs Medical Counselling Committee(MCC) and Ors)