Appearing for nine candidates, who hold degree of bachelor in Dental Surgery (BDS) by a Dental council recognised institute, senior advocate Vikas Singh told a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah that though the NEET-BDS 2021 was held on December 16 last year and results were declared on December 31, the DGHS has not announced the dates for counselling of the candidates for allocation of MDS seats in various institutes.
The bench was surprised with the roll of events as Singh pointed out that since NEET-PG examinations have been postponed due to Covid pandemic to allow MBBS doctors to continue with their Covidcare duties, the MDS counselling appears to have been deferred.
The bench said since BDS degree holders are not assigned Covid duty, it saw no reason for deferment of the counselling for MDS courses and sought response affidavits from the respondents on the possible schedule for MDS counselling by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC).
MCC, under the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and affiliated to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, is responsible for allotting seats for undergraduate, postgraduate and super-specialty medical and dental courses in government-run/aided colleges and deemed-to-be-university colleges. MCC allots seats online on the basis of the candidate’s score in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).
The nine petitioners are doctors who possess recognized degrees of Bachelor in Dental Surgery awarded by a university or institute in India and registered with the State Dental Council. They said they were among the 30,000 BDS graduates who had appeared in the NEET-MDS 2021 examination but are aggrieved by the infinite and unreasonable delay caused by MCC in announcing the counselling schedule for NEET-MDS 2021.
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