NEET-PG admissions: Supreme Court says need to end uncertainty, Centre urges to allow counselling

The Supreme Court said it is important to put an end to uncertainty in connection with NEETPG admissions as the Centre requested it to allow counselling which is on hold currently against the backdrop of objections raised regarding income criterion of Rs 8 lakh for economically weaker sections EWSSolicitor General Tushar Mehta representing the Centre submitted before a bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud that the government would not accept any position whereby the OBC or EWS aspirants whether pre or post the exercise is deprived of something which is legitimately due to themMehta emphasised that the quota dates back to January 2019 and it has been implemented across the country We are at a point where counselling is stuck We need doctors in this difficult situation and we as a society cannot go into reservation and lengthy arguments he said He added that like any other report any intelligent mind can point out errors in the report and the question would be whether the poorest of the poor is overinclusive and added they are notHe urged the court to allow the counselling to begin and in the meantime it could consider the objections The bench also comprising Justice AS Bopanna asked senior advocates Arvind Datar and Shyam Divan representing the petitioners their views on Mehtas suggestion on commencement of counselling Need to put an end to this uncertainty it notedThe petitioners counsel insisted that the rules of the game should not change During the hearing Divan argued that postgraduate admissions must be completely meritbased and reservation must be minimal and referred to Supreme Court judgments which hold that there should be no reservation in superspeciality coursesDatar submitted that there are two difficulties for letting the counselling If the counselling is done based on the report then our plea is dismissed at the threshold When your lordships say allow counselling does it mean allowing admissions on Rs 8 lakh limitDivan added that in many courses postgraduation is the end of the road which means superspeciality in some departments He added therefore the principle of superspeciality will apply to postgraduate courses too The top court will continue to hear the matter on January 6The Centre has told the top court that Rs 8 lakh income criterion for determining the EWS is much more stringent than the one for the OBC creamy layer The Centre has accepted the report of a threemember panel constituted to revisit the EWS criteria The panel in its report said Firstly the EWSs criteria relates to the financial year prior to the year of application whereas the income criterion for the creamy layer in OBC category is applicable to gross annual income for three consecutive yearsThe panel added Secondly in case of deciding the OBC creamy layer income from salaries agriculture and traditional artisanal professions are excluded from the consideration whereas the Rs 8 lakh criteria for EWS includes that from all sources including farming So despite being the same cutoff number their composition is different and hence the two cannot be equatedThe panel comprised former Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey Prof VK Malhotra of ICSSR and Principal Economic Advisor to the government Sanjeev Sanyal The panel was set up on November 30The top court is hearing writ petitions challenging 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes OBC and 10 per cent reservation for EWS in allIndia quota seats for postgraduate medical courses As many as 15 per cent seats in MBBS and 50 per cent seats in MS and MD courses are filled through All India Quota from the candidates selected through the NEETThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever