With 1,857 super-speciality medical seats still lying vacant after two rounds of NEET-SS counselling, the Centre has proposed lowering the qualifying threshold from the existing 50th percentile to the 30th percentile for a special stray vacancy round. 

The proposal was placed before the Supreme Court on Thursday, days after the court asked the government to reconsider its decision to retain the 50th percentile despite the large number of unfilled seats.

The Centre, in a two-page note submitted before a bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe, said it had revisited the issue after consulting the concerned stakeholders.

According to the government, the proposed relaxation is intended to prevent available super-speciality seats from going unused and make better use of the training capacity available in medical institutions.

The vacancies emerged after the second round of NEET-SS counselling, with 1,094 DM/MCh seats and 763 DNB-SS seats remaining unfilled.

A considerable share of the vacant positions is in highly specialised medical and surgical disciplines.

The proposed special stray vacancy round would follow the existing rules governing such rounds.

However, there would be one important restriction: candidates who have already taken admission would not be permitted to participate.

The Centre has also made it clear that candidates already holding or having joined a seat would not be eligible for upgradation through the proposed exercise.

The move follows the Supreme Court's intervention last week, when it asked the government to reconsider its position on the qualifying percentile so that seats do not go to waste.

The proposed reduction would open the counselling process to a larger pool of NEET-SS aspirants and give institutions another opportunity to fill seats that remained vacant despite two rounds of admissions.

The Centre's proposal is now before the Supreme Court as part of the ongoing proceedings concerning the vacant super-speciality seats.