New Delhi: The Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association has asked the Supreme Court to let the state keep all seats that remain vacant out of 151 super-speciality medical seats meant for its government doctors if the NEET-SS cutoff is lowered, rather than surrender half to the national admissions pool.
The plea seeks to modify a 28 July Supreme Court order, which directed that if the NEET-SS qualifying percentile is lowered after the second round of counselling, only half of the 151 vacant super-speciality seats—out of the total of 215 reserved for Tamil Nadu’s government doctors—would remain with the state.
The other half in this case would stay with the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), which conducts the All India counselling process, through which seats are allotted to doctors across the country based on their NEET-SS rank and preferences. NEET-SS is the entrance exam for doctors seeking admission to advanced courses such as DM and MCh after completing an MD or MS.
The applicants want all 151 vacant seats returned to Tamil Nadu instead. They argue that the Supreme Court had already upheld the state’s in-service reservation policy in Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association v. Union of India (2021). Under this policy, Tamil Nadu reserves 50 per cent of its super-speciality seats for doctors already working in the state health service.
The application comes against the backdrop of an ongoing dispute over Tamil Nadu’s in-service quota. Although the Supreme Court has allowed the state to reserve 50 per cent of its super-speciality seats for government doctors, 151 of these remained vacant because there were not enough eligible candidates. In June this year, the court permitted the 151 vacant seats to be filled through the All India Merit List.
The dispute delayed the second round of NEET-SS counselling across the country until the court’s 28 July order allowed the process to resume.
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The latest conflict
The 28 July order by a bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe directed that counselling should proceed at the existing NEET-SS qualifying percentile. The dispute centres on the part of the order that says if the qualifying percentile is lowered after the second round of counselling, only half of the remaining vacant seats will stay with the DGHS.
The Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association contends that these seats belong exclusively to the state’s in-service quota and are transferred to the DGHS only as a temporary arrangement when there are not enough eligible in-service candidates.
It cited previous years to support its claim: in the 2024-25 academic session, for instance, all 58 seats that remained vacant after the second round of counselling were returned to the state.
“The direction in paragraph 4, to the extent it retains 50% of the unfilled seats with the DGHS, is thus a departure from the settled and uniform practice followed in all the years since this counselling arrangement has been in operation,” the application stated.
The application also cited a 7 November 2020 Tamil Nadu government order that created the 50 per cent in-service quota for super-speciality seats in government medical colleges. The Supreme Court upheld that reservation policy in 2021.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)