Justice J.B. Pardiwala, Justice R. Mahadevan, Supreme Court
Supreme Court Issues Directions For Bringing Transparency & Fairness In The NEET-PG Counselling Process
|The Supreme Court modified the Impugned Order of the Allahabad High Court, which had disposed of a Writ Petition.
The Supreme Court has issued directions for bringing transparency and fairness in the NEET-PG counselling process.
The Court modified the Impugned Order of the Allahabad High Court, which had disposed of a Writ Petition, observing that "no admission can be granted after the cut of date" and that a time schedule is required to be strictly adhered to. However, the High Court computed the compensation at Rs. Ten lakhs each payable to the Petitioners.
The Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan held, “The present case instead highlights systemic issues and underscores the need for transparency and fairness in the NEET-PG counselling process. Accordingly, in the interest of justice, we are inclined to award a sum of Rs.1,00,000/- each to Respondent Nos.1 and 2 towards litigative expenses, to be paid by the petitioners, within a period of three weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. The direction of the High Court awarding compensation of Rs.10,00,000/- each is hereby set aside and the impugned order is accordingly modified.”
Senior Advocate Shoeb Alam appeared for the Petitioners, while ASG Suryaprakash V. Raju represented the Respondents.
Brief Facts
The grievance of the Writ Petitioners, who were aspirants in the first NEET-PG conducted for the academic year 2017-18, was that there had been a deviation in the admission process. They alleged that candidates who had already been allotted seats in the first and second rounds of counselling were again permitted to appear in the mop-up round. This allegedly resulted in a number of seats in the Radiology course being allotted to less meritorious candidates, including those who had already participated in earlier rounds.
Court’s Reasoning
The Supreme Court remarked, “That apart, associations or consortia of medical colleges conducted counselling for private colleges within States. For deemed universities, counselling practices varied: some conducted their own, while others joined private college counselling. However, this decentralized system often led to malpractices, such as the admission of less meritorious students or selections made without regard to merit. This created a situation where private medical and dental colleges could admit students in violation of the meritbased principle.”
“Subsequently, the Central Government through a notification dated 24.09.2020 repealed all provisions of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956. In its place, the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, was brought into force, dissolving the MCI and the Board of Governors in supersession of MCI. The National Medical Commission was established under the new Act to regulate the medical profession and education, and to lay down standards for the same,” the Bench stated.
“To further optimize seat allocation, any seat vacated due to resignation, surrender, or migration is retained and made available in subsequent rounds of AIQ counselling. The number of counselling rounds has been increased from two to four – namely, Round 1, Round 2, Mop-Up Round, and Stray Vacancy Round. This expansion provides candidates with greater opportunities to secure a seat and reduces the wastage of available seats,” the Bench remarked.
Consequently, the Court issued the following directions:
“(i) Implement a Nationally synchronized counselling calendar to align AIQ and State rounds and prevent seat blocking across systems.
(ii) Mandate Pre-Counselling Fee Disclosure by all private / deemed universities, detailing tuition, hostel, caution deposit, and miscellaneous charges.
iii) Establish a Centralized Fee Regulation Framework under the National Medical Commission (NMC)
(iv) Permit upgrade windows post-round 2 for admitted candidates to shift to better seats without reopening counselling to new entrants.
(v) Publish raw scores, answer keys and normalization formulae for transparency in multi-shift NEET-PG exams.
(vi) Enforce strict penalties for seat blocking including forfeiture of security deposit, disqualification from future NEET-PG exams (for repeat offenders), blacklisting of complicit colleges.
(vii) Implement Aadhaar-based seat tracking to prevent multiple seat holdings and misrepresentation.
(viii) Hold state authorities and institutional DMEs accountable under contempt or disciplinary action for rule or schedule violations.
(ix) Adopt a Uniform Counselling Conduct Code across all States for standard rules on eligibility, mop-up rounds, seat withdrawal, and grievance timelines.
(x) Set up a third-party oversight mechanism under NMC for annual audits of counselling data, compliance, and admission fairness.”
Cause Title: State Of U.P. & Anr. v. Bhavna Tiwari & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 747)
Appearance:
Petitioners: Senior Advocate Shoeb Alam; AOR D. Kumanan; Advocates Sheikh F. Kalia, A. Noufal, Dev Sareen and Shereef K.A.
Respondents: ASG Suryaprakash V. Raju; AOR Arvind Kumar Sharma; Advocates Zoheb Hussain, Annam Venkatesh, Arkaj Kumar and Aaditya Shankar Dixit