Penalise if seats blocked in medical PG courses: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: In order to infuse transparency and prevent the malpractice of seat-blocking in PG admission in medical colleges, Supreme Court has directed that the raw scores, answer keys and normalisation formulae of NEET-PG examinations must be published and said that strict penalties for seat blocking be enforced.The court said the counselling process was conceived as a transparent, merit-based national mechanism for allocating post-graduate medical seats but over time it has come under increasing scrutiny for facilitating widespread seat blocking. tnnSeat-blocking puts chance over merit: SC in NEET-UG case Seat blocking is when candidates temporarily accept seats, only to abandon them later after securing more preferred options. This leads to those seats remaining unavailable in earlier rounds and opening up only in later stages, disadvantaging higher-ranked aspirants, who may have already committed to less preferred choices."This malpractice distorts the actual availability of seats, fosters inequity among aspirants, and often reduces the process to one governed more by chance than merit. Seat blocking is not merely an isolated wrongdoing - it reflects deeper systemic flaws rooted in fragmented governance, lack of transparency, and weak policy enforcement," the bench said.Court directed implementation of a nationally synchronised counselling calendar to align the all-India quota and state rounds and prevent seat blocking across systems. It also said a centralised fee regulation framework under National Medical Commission and pre-counselling fee disclosure by all private/deemed universities, detailing tuition, hostel, caution deposit, and miscellaneous charges be made mandatory."Enforce strict penalties for seat blocking including forfeiture of security deposit, disqualification from future NEET-PG exams, blacklisting of complicit colleges. Implement Aadhaar-based seat tracking to prevent multiple seat holdings," it said.