The Supreme Court has directed the Union government to immediately hand over 40 vacant super-speciality medical seats in Tamil Nadu to the state government for filling through counselling.
The seats were earlier placed under the All India quota by the Tamil Nadu government. After the national-level counselling concluded, the seats remained unfilled, prompting a petition seeking their return to the state for allotment.
During the hearing before a bench led by Justice P.S. Narasimha, Tamil Nadu submitted that 111 candidates in the state were waiting for super-speciality admissions and sought a reduction in the qualifying cut-off to enable the vacancies to be filled. The Centre opposed lowering the cut-off, citing concerns about academic standards.
In its order, the court said the 40 unfilled seats under the All India quota must be transferred back to Tamil Nadu without delay. It also directed that counselling be completed within three weeks based on the revised cut-off, and accepted the Centre’s decision to reduce the cut-off to 30% for filling the vacant super-speciality seats.
The ruling has been welcomed as a step to prevent government super-speciality seats from going waste due to vacancies.
