On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued a notice to the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC), the Central Government, and the National Medical Commission (NMC) in response to a petition alleging irregularities in the third round of counseling for All India Quota (AIQ) seats.

The counseling process pertains to candidates who appeared for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET)-PG, which is used to determine postgraduate medical college admissions in India.

A bench consisting of Justices BR Gavai and K Vinod Chandran directed the MCC, NMC, and the Central Government to respond to the petition.

The petition highlighted instances of seat blocking in the third round of counseling for AIQ seats, occurring even before the completion of the second round of state-level counseling in certain states like Madhya Pradesh.

As a result, many candidates were unable to register for seats that would have otherwise been available to them.

The petition further claimed that due to these irregularities, candidates were allocated seats in lower branches than what they had initially sought. It also accused the process of violating the timeline set by the Supreme Court for NEET seat allocation, as seen in the Anjana Chari case. Senior Advocate K Parameshwar and Advocate Tanvi Dubey represented the petitioners.