New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday turned down a plea of the deemed universities seeking an extension of time to carry out counselling and admit 603 students on the post graduate medical/dental seats lying vacant with them.
Dismissing the plea as devoid of merit, a vacation bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Surya Kant said if after three rounds of counselling, including final mop-up round, some seats remain vacant, it cannot be helped. It said extension cannot be granted just because some seats are lying vacant without there being any other justification.
"We find no merit in this petition and the same is accordingly dismissed," the court said in its verdict it had reserved on Thursday.
Referring to its earlier orders relaxing the deadline that were relied upon by the deemed universities/colleges to seek extension of time for counselling and admission, Justice Gupta speaking for the bench said:
"They have been passed in the peculiar facts and circumstances of each particular case and in most of the orders it is clearly mentioned that the orders shall not be treated as precedent."
In this case, Justice Gupta said the petitioner deemed universities want a general extension of time not on account of any particular difficulty faced by them but generally on the ground that a large number of seats for the P.G. courses are lying vacant.
The court further said that October 11, 2017 order related to filling up of 553 superspecialty seats was passed on the request of the Central Government and clearly stated that it would be applicable to the said academic year only.
The Centre had on Thursday told the court that any extension of time for conducting counselling for filling 603 seats would be a "bad precedent for the future years" and it would "completely dilute the object of having cut-off date."
