Institute of Legal and Management Studies

Given an "extraordinary" situation, the Supreme Court recently directed the National Medical Commission to consider if the General Medicine seat occupied by a NEET-PG candidate could be converted to one under Radio Diagnosis, as he had spent 6 months studying the said course before another candidate, who has a higher claim in the institutional reservation, became eligible for the Radio Diagnosis seat.

A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Atul S Chandurkar passed the order thus:

"In view of a rather extraordinary situation, the National Medical Commission is directed to consider if the seat occupied by the petitioner in General Medicine can be converted as the seat for Radio Diagnosis. This direction, only to consider, is in view of the fact that the petitioner has spent six months pursuing Radio Diagnosis and also for the reason that he is meritorious."

While issuing the direction to "consider", the Court clarified that it did not wish to disturb the position of respondent No.4-candidate, who became eligible to the lone seat allocated towards Radio Diagnosis at the medical institute.

The Court posted the matter on August 29 to hear the NMC's response.

Briefly put, the petitioner is a Senior Casualty Medical Officer at Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS), Imphal. He and respondent No. 4 (Senior Resident in the Department of Radiodiagnosis at JNIMS) appeared in the NEET-PG Examination, 2024. The petitioner got selected in the 3rd Counselling for PG course in Radiodiagnosis against the seat reserved for the JNIMS sponsored candidates as provided under the 1st Amended Rules of 2022 and Reservation Scheme of 2022 (which provided that he must surrender the seat in case any eligible candidate, serving as Senior Resident become eligible after lowering of the cut-off percentile in subsequent rounds).

He scored better percentile than respondent No.4 and was admitted in the JNIMS PG course after his selection. However, subsequently, due to lowering of the minimum cut-off percentile, respondent No.4 became eligible to participate in Stray Round Counselling. She submitted a representation stating that the petitioner must surrender the PG seat of Radiodiagnosis in terms of the Reservation Scheme of 2022 (notified by Director, JNIMS) and sought allotment of the seat to her as provided under the 1st Amended Rules, 2022.

Initially, a Single Bench of the High Court refrained from deciding the case on merit and directed the authorities to adjust the admission of the petitioner (in Radiodiagnosis PG course) against a vacant PG seat in Medicine. In appeal, the Division Bench upheld the Single Bench's decision.

Vide the impugned judgment, the Division Bench opined that there was no delay or lapse on the part of respondent No. 4 in making a claim to the authorities to consider her case for admission against the PG seat in the Department of Radiodiagnosis and that the authorities unreasonably failed to consider her claim in time.

"We are also of the opinion that the respondent No. 4 is entitled to have her case consider for admission against the lone PG seat in the Department of Radiodiagnosis, which is reserved for the JNIMS sponsored candidates, as provided under the 1st Amended Rules, 2022 read with the Reservation Scheme of 2022 and such entitlement cannot be deprived of only on account of the inaction on the part of the authorities and without any fault on the part of the respondent No. 4," the High Court held.

Further, it was of the view that interests of both the petitioner and respondent No.4 could be protected by the arrangement proposed by the Single Bench. Dissatisfied, the petitioner approached the Supreme Court.

Appearance: Senior Advocate Shadan Farasat, AoR Neha Rathi (for petitioner); Advocate General Lenin Singh Hijam, Senior Advocate Anupam Lal Das, AoRs Anne Mathew, Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar and Prateek Bhatia (for respondents)

Case Title: MUTUM ANILKUMAR SINGH v. THE STATE OF MANIPUR, SLP(C) No. 21750/2025

Click here to read order