"Ministry of Health dilly dallying:" Supreme Court urges Central govt to finalise NEET-MDS 2021 counselling schedule within a week

The Ministry of Health is dilly-dallying on the issue of finalising the schedule for holding counselling for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test and Masters of Dental Surgery courses (NEET-MDS) 2021, the Supreme Court said on Monday. .A Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah took exception to the delay by the Central government in not arriving at a decision and asked the government to do so by this week. "You are just dilly dallying. make a statement now. Ministry of Health is just dilly dallying. These are hands on courses and these doctors will be in service of patients," said Justice DY Chandrachud. Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj appearing for the Central government, sought a week's time to file a detailed response which the Court eventually allowed. "On the request of ASG we grant a week's time for the response to the grievance set out in the plea. We expect an expeditious decision will be taken in this week and we would be informed when Centre proposes to conduct counselling," the Court made it clear in its order.We hope the centre will be conscious to the ramifications of the delay being faced by students due to the non-counselling of students, the Court added. The top court had, on July 2, issued notice on the plea challenging the "unjust and infinite delay by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC)" in announcement of the counselling schedule for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test and Masters of Dental Surgery courses (NEET-MDS) 2021..The plea said that the entrance exam was conducted on December 16, 2020.Thereafter, results were also declared on December 31, 2020. However, after the declaration of results there has been no update yet regarding counselling."Umpteen efforts were made by the Petitioners to get in touch with the Respondents in order to get an idea about the schedule of the counselling, however, till today there has been no update, regarding the counselling," the petition filed through advocates Tanvi Dubey and Charu Mathur said..[NEET-MDS 2021] Plea in Supreme Court against delay by Medical Counselling Committee in announcing counselling schedule .The petition also raised concerns regarding the conduct of NEET-PG and NEET-MDS counselling together since NEET-PG has been postponed till August 31 and waiting for the same would further delay NEET-MDS counselling."From the past years records, it is clear that the time duration between the NEET-PG examination and announcement of result is at least one (1) month. Further, the counselling schedule for NEET-PG is released three (3) months after the results. Therefore, it will be unrealistic to organise the counselling for both the examinations together, as it would infinitely delay the counselling for the NEET-MDS candidates and would cause undue hardship to the NEET-MDS aspirants," the plea said..The petition sought directions to the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to release the counselling date at the earliest, but in any event, not later than three weeks and to direct MCC to conduct a separate counselling for the NEET-MDS 2021 and not wait for the counselling of NEET-PG.