Aastha Thakur
Published on: 02 December 2022 at 18:14 IST
The Supreme Court approved the Tamil Nadu government’s plea to provide NEET-qualified in-service candidates 50% of the super-specialty seats in government medical colleges for the upcoming academic year.
The bench comprised of Justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath directed state government to fill the vacancy as per the Tamil Nadu government order dated November 7, 2020, within a period of 15 days. The state government had strongly defended the government order (GO) of 2020 on the Super Specialty seats.
“The state of Tamil Nadu has approached this court for clarification of an order dated March 16, 2022, that the said order is also applicable to all subsequent academic years till disposal of petitions. We have heard the counsels.”
“The ASG submitted that last year a number of seats reserved for in-service candidates could not be filled up. She submitted that super speciality courses are valuable national assets and they cannot be permitted to go waste…”
“We appreciate the anxiety of the ASG that the issue requires to be decided finally. However, for the present academic year, we find the state needs to be permitted to fill the seats based on GO,”
The apex court directed that on the 16th day, the state government has to inform the centre regarding all the seats which remain unfulfilled from in-service candidates.
The vacant seats will be filled as per the UOI will on the basis of All India merit list. The court has listed the matter for hearing on February 14, 2023.
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati submitted that since 2016 there has been no reservation in super speciality courses.
Additional Advocate General (AAG) Amit Anand Tiwari, appearing for TN, told the apex court that the state government has filed an interim application seeking clarification.
The top court had granted permission on March 16 to move forward with the counselling for 2021–2022 and give 50% of super-specialty seats in government medical colleges to in-service students who qualified for the NEET.
According to the apex court’s interim order, the super-specialty medical admissions counselling for the academic year 2020–2021 will proceed without allocating a 50% quota to in-service doctors, which was vacated on November 27, 2020.
The top court is currently dealing with cases challenging the state government’s GO.