Supreme Court approved Online Counselling for filling up of PG Medical Seats from 1 May 2012

The Supreme Court of India permitted the Union Health Ministry on 23 March 2012 to further the online counseling for filling postgraduate medical seats from 1 May 2012. The filling up of the seats will be under the 50 per cent all-India quota system in government colleges. The National Informatics Centre is making the format for the online counselling process.

A Bench of Justices Deepak Verma and KS Radhakrishnan agreed to the proposal offered by the Union Health Ministry to ease up the Counselling Process as the number of seats available under the all-India quota in both PG and UG courses had increased over the years. Also the new proposed Online Counselling system will help the candidates including the Physically Handicapped, Girls and Parents to get rid of long hour journeys.

Under the existing system following the declaration of the results of the Entrance Examinations, the personal counselling would commence on 27 March 2012. It was then stated that if the Online Counselling was approved by the apex court, the personal counselling would be dispensed with.

Under the online system of seats allotment, candidates need not to come to the counselling centre instead they can exercise their choice of colleges by using Internet from anywhere in the country. Even for the second and third counselling, candidates can follow the same procedure.

Categorisation under the Online Counselling Process

Under the system for Online Counselling process, the college, subject and seats will be identified for the Open Category, SC, ST, OBC and the Physically Handicapped by arranging seats Alphabetically, State-wise, College-wise, Degree subjects and then PG diploma subjects.

Modifications made under the Online Counselling Process

The Union Health Ministry sought few modifications mentioned below:

• Under the Online Counselling process, there Union Health Ministry sought three rounds instead of two rounds as of now to ensure that most of the seats were filled.
• Candidates, five times the number of seats available for allotment to all qualified aspirants, will be given chance to participate in online counselling i.e. of the number of seats available is 30 then a total of 150 candidates can appear for counselling
• Candidates will have the right to choose from seats available in a particular category without any restriction on the number of choices of course and college i.e. candidate can apply for as many colleges as of choice.
• Each candidate will be given 10 days of time for joining the college.
• The allotment made during the counseling will be final.
• The candidates who do not register for Online Counselling during the dates notified by the Ministry OR
• The candidates who do not fill up their choice during the Online Counselling for allotment of seats OR
• The candidates who do not join the allotted course/college within the time specified by the Ministry will have to forfeit their claim for a seat under the all India-quota scheme.

At the end of the Online Counselling process, the seats which will be remained vacant will be given to the respective States to fill in the vacancies.

The Union Health Ministry also decided to submit a similar proposal to the Court for Online Counselling for Under-graduate Courses 2012-13.