The Centre has told the Supreme Court that it will lower the qualifying percentile for NEET-Super Speciality (NEET-SS) seats from 50 to 30, a move aimed at filling 1,857 seats that remain vacant after the second round of counselling, many of them in highly specialised medical and surgical disciplines.
In a note filed before the apex court, the government said the decision was taken in consultation with stakeholders to ensure available training capacity is not wasted.
The lower percentile will apply to the proposed Special Stray Vacancy Round and is expected to bring in around 6,000 additional eligible candidates, roughly three times the number of vacant seats, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati told the court, according to a PTI report.
The Centre also addressed a separate dispute over Tamil Nadu's in-service seats. In line with earlier Supreme Court directions, 40 vacant in-service seats belonging to the state will be handed back to the Tamil Nadu government for a week-long Stray Vacancy Round of its own.
Seats still unfilled after that will be added to the national pool managed by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), which will conduct its Special Stray Vacancy Round for these and other vacant super speciality seats over two weeks.
The submission comes after the top court earlier pushed the Centre to reconsider its refusal to lower the NEET-SS cut-off, citing concern over the scale of seats going unfilled each year. It was made in a plea challenging the "premature diversion" of 152 super speciality seats reserved for in-service government doctors in Tamil Nadu to the all-India quota.
NEET-SS is the entrance exam for admission to super speciality courses such as DM and MCh at medical institutes across India, and unfilled seats in high-demand specialisations have been a recurring concern in recent counselling cycles.
(With inputs from PTI)
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