Supreme Court to hear plea urging NMC to ensure no PG seats go vacant in medical colleges

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a plea seeking direction to the National Medical Commission to devise a mechanism so that no postgraduate seats go vacant in pre-clinical and para-clinical branches across medical colleges in India.

The petition has also sought a direction to the commission to produce data of how many seats have remained vacant in the last five years in the postgraduate pre-clinical and para-clinical branches.

The plea would be heard by a bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and N V Anjaria. While hearing a separate plea in January this year, the apex court had observed that seats in medical courses cannot remain vacant.

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It had asked the Centre to hold a meeting with relevant stakeholders, including the states, to address the issue. In April 2023, the top court flagged the issue of super-speciality seats in medical courses remaining unfilled.

The Centre had then proposed to appoint a committee, consisting of all the stakeholders including representatives of states and private medical colleges, under the chairmanship of the director general of health services to resolve the issue.