Consider common counselling for PG medicine from 2021: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on May 26, 2020, has stated that the National Board of Education (NBE) must consider conducting a 'common or single online counselling' for admission in Post Graduate Medical Courses leading to degrees and diplomas and the seats in DNB (Diplomate of National Board) courses in the country from next session onwards.

However, the bench including Justices UU Lalit and Dinesh Maheshwari did not order NBE to conduct the common counseling for the academic year 2020. The NBE conducts the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Post Graduate (NEET PG) examination.

“Since the petitioners have approached the court at a stage where the entire process has been undertaken and many candidates have been allocated various courses in the Counselling, we do not deem it appropriate to pass any direction for the present year. However, going by the assertions made in the response filed by the Medical Council of India, we may observe that a common counselling or single online counselling in the coming years would definitely take care of any similar grievance,” said the bench in its judgment, as reported by the Press Trust of India.

Plea filed by medical students

The main objective of NBE was to enhance the quality of medical education. It is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. DNB is a postgraduate or postdoctoral diploma course where candidates are trained for three years. The apex court has considered the submission of NBE and stated that the authority was in an agreement in order to conduct the common counseling from the next session onwards.

“Consequently, while refusing to pass any directions in so far as the present year is concerned, we hope that the authorities will be able to have common counselling for DNB PG seats along with all Post Graduate seats leading to Degrees and Diplomas … for coming years starting with NEET PG 2021 Examination,” said Apex court, reports PTI.

The verdict of conducting common counselling came after four medical students filed a plea to the Centre, NBE, and others for filling up seats in the PG medical and DNB courses. However, the apex court did not allow the plea for common counselling for the year 2020 taking the submissions of NBE and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare into consideration.

(With inputs from PTI)