The Supreme Court Friday refused to extend counselling time for filling up as many as 603 vacant seats in post-graduate medical courses in deemed universities and private colleges saying this would be like "opening a pandora's box".
The top court said merely because the seats are lying vacant could not be a ground to grant extension of time and further opportunity to fill up these seats.
A vacation bench of justices Deepak Gupta and Surya Kant dismissed a plea of a society which claimed to represent a large number of deemed universities and colleges running post-graduate (PG) medical courses.
The society has sought extension of time to respective medical colleges/deemed universities for carrying out counselling for PG courses since around 1000 seats in these educational institutions are lying vacant.
"Merely because the seats are lying vacant, in our view, is not a ground to grant extension of time and grant further opportunity to fill up vacant seats," the bench said.
It further said, "The schedule must be followed. If we permit violation of schedule and grant extension, we shall be opening a Pandora's box and the whole purpose of fixing a time schedule and laying down a regime which strictly adheres to time schedule will be defeated."
The bench said, "The schedule as approved by this court provides that the declaration of result has to be done by the end of January and the first round of counselling for All India quota seats, deemed and central institutes has to be completed by March 24 and state counselling should be completed by April 5, second round of counselling by April 12 and April 26 respectively and mop-up round by May 8 for state and the May 22 for deemed universities and central institutes."
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