The Supreme court has adjourned the plea surrounding the NEET PG 2021 counselling case till November 16, 2021. The decision was taken due to the Diwali vacations starting this week. This adjournment has also put the counselling process of the successful candidates on hold.
The apex court was examining the affidavit and justifications filed by the central government regarding its decision of keeping the income cap up to 8 lakhs for the EWS candidates. Supreme Court has recently questioned the centre for adopting similar income criteria for the EWS and Backwards category. The Center in response said, that the decision was taken after consulting top lawmakers.
However, Solicitor General asked the honourable court to adjourn the matter of NEET PG counselling till the vacations are over. The plea was heard by the SC bench chaired by Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice Vikram Nath, and Justice BV Nagarathna. With this decision, the counselling for the candidates has also been postponed till November 16, 2021.
NEET PG 2021 counselling that was expected to begin on October 25, 2021, for the AIQ and state-based quota medical colleges is subjected to delay citing the plea filed by the centre regarding its decision of adopting the newly framed policies of providing 27% and 10% reservation to the OBC and EWS category students.
Earlier, on the behest of the Supreme Court, the centre and MCC (Medical Counselling Committee) had postponed the counselling process for the candidates successful in the NEET PG 2021. Senior Advocate Arvind Dattar, representing candidates, has pronounced this matter as grave and the decision to be a blow of injustice to the candidates who have been waiting. He also said that by the time the court gives its final verdict, the whole admission process shall be over.
As soon as the decision is released by the apex court, counselling shall commence for all the candidates successful in the NEET PG exam. For NEET Post Graduate admission, the counselling is done at two levels, 50% of seats are reserved for the colleges at AIQ (All India Quota) level. Whereas, the remaining 50% of seats are assigned to the state-based medical colleges.
According to the NEET PG statistics released by authorities around 1,74,886 candidates have registered for the NEET PG 2021 exam. The candidates who are successful in the exam will stand a chance to get admission in 6,102 government, private, deemed/central universities.
