SC vacates stay on second round counselling of PG medical courses

FARIDKOT:The Supreme Court, on Thursday, vacated the stay on the second round of counselling for postgraduate MD/MS/MDS courses. The court has also directed that the second round of counselling for the state quota shall be conducted and completed by May 10, 2018. The completion date for the mop-up round for the state quota is extended to May 15, 2018. The earlier date for this was May 8.

“We have vacated the order dated April 20, 2018. The authority concerned will now report the unfilled seats in the second round of the All-India counselling to respective states by May 5,” the SC order said.

Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) vicechancellor Dr Raj Bahadur said, “We postponed the second counselling as soon as the case was filed in the Supreme Court. Therefore, it has not hit our counselling process. “After getting the revert on seats on the All-India quota, we shall now, probably, conduct the second counselling and the mop-up round on May 5, as per the directions of the Supreme Court,” he added.

Around 50% of seats on offer for MD in dental sciences in Punjab had remained vacant after the conclusion of the first round of centralised counselling at the BFUHS on April 5.

Of 133 seats across 12 dental colleges, only 68 have been filled, with the rest vacant. However, for MD/MS courses in other streams, 350 of 420 seats have been filled. The National Board of Examinations had, this year, lowered the qualifying percentile for the MDS course, making a drastic cut of 38-45% marks in the minimum eligibility for admission.