PIL seeks action plan to curb vacant PG seats, SC to hear matter

The Supreme Court on Monday will hear a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking directions to the National Medical Commission (NMC) to establish a clear mechanism that ensures postgraduate seats in pre-clinical and para-clinical branches do not remain vacant across medical colleges in India. The petition also seeks disclosure of detailed seat-vacancy data for the last five years, specifically in non-clinical PG disciplines, where a disproportionate number of seats have historically gone unfilled. The matter will be taken up by a bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and N V Anjaria, and it is not a suo motu action but one initiated on the basis of a petition filed before the court.

The plea comes at a time when the scale of vacant PG seats has become a recurring concern. In recent counselling cycles, more than 13,000 postgraduate medical seats remained vacant after two rounds of NEET-PG counselling, despite a total intake of 68,142 seats nationwide. This translates to nearly 19 per cent of all PG seats going unfilled in that cycle alone. Even in earlier years, the number of unfilled seats had shown an upward trend, rising to about 4,400 in 2022–23. A substantial proportion of these vacancies lie in non-clinical branches such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, microbiology and forensic medicine, many of which see minimal takers even after multiple counselling rounds. For instance, in Tamil Nadu alone, 79 non-clinical PG seats remained vacant even after three rounds of counselling in a recent admission cycle.

Available assessments also reveal disparities between government and private medical colleges in terms of seat utilisation. Past analyses indicate that around 10 per cent of PG seats in government medical colleges go unfilled, compared with nearly 23 per cent in private medical colleges. In state-specific examples, such as Tamil Nadu, more than half of the unfilled non-clinical seats were in government-quota seats, with the remainder in management or private-quota categories. These patterns highlight deeper systemic issues, including lower demand for non-clinical specialisations, higher fees in private institutions, and insufficient incentives for graduates to opt for academic or teaching-oriented disciplines.

The Supreme Court has addressed the issue of vacant medical seats on multiple earlier occasions. During the hearing of a separate matter in January, the court remarked that seats in medical institutions cannot be allowed to remain vacant when the country faces a shortage of trained specialists. It directed the Union government to convene a meeting with all stakeholders, including state governments and medical colleges, to devise corrective mechanisms. In April 2023 as well, the court had expressed concern over super-speciality seats remaining unfilled and the Centre subsequently proposed the formation of a committee chaired by the Director General of Health Services to examine the reasons and propose solutions.

The current petition revives the larger debate on whether India’s expanding medical education infrastructure is aligned with the preferences and career pathways of MBBS graduates. Experts have attributed the persistent vacancies in non-clinical PG courses to limited job prospects, lower salaries compared with clinical specialities, and a shortage of faculty in these departments, which in turn affects student interest. The government has attempted to address the issue by relaxing eligibility norms in some years even reducing the NEET-PG percentile requirement to zero but vacancies have continued, pointing to structural rather than procedural gaps.

As the Supreme Court takes up the matter again, the outcome could lead to significant policy interventions. A direction to the NMC to adopt a binding mechanism may reshape how counselling rounds are conducted, how seats are allocated, and how non-clinical disciplines are incentivised. If the court mandates disclosure of year-wise vacancy data, it could bring much-needed transparency and help policymakers identify the clusters of persistent vacancies. The hearing is expected to focus on whether the current admission framework serves national interest and whether additional reforms are required to ensure that valuable PG seats especially in foundational medical sciences do not continue to remain unused year after year.