Tamil Nadu to Regain 40 Super Speciality Seats as NEET-SS Cut-off Falls

Tamil Nadu is set to recover 40 super speciality seats that were surrendered to the All India Quota after the second round of counselling, following a reduction in the qualifying percentile for NEET-Super Speciality.

The Centre informed the Supreme Court that the qualifying score for the examination is being brought down from the 50th percentile to the 30th percentile. The change opens the way for the reversion of seats that had remained unfilled after the second round of All India Quota counselling.

The State had given up 151 unfilled seats reserved for its in-service candidates in keeping with an earlier Supreme Court direction. Under that order, issued on May 29, vacant in-service super speciality seats were to be handed over to the All India pool, with the stipulation that if the qualifying cut-off was lowered in later rounds, half of the remaining unfilled Tamil Nadu seats would return to the State.

Fresh applications likely

Officials said around 100 candidates are eligible for the reverted seats, but a fresh round of applications will be invited once the court orders are received. The length of the application window will depend on the period fixed by the court.

The Tamil Nadu Medical Officers' Association, which had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court over the rights of in-service doctors pursuing super speciality education, said it later moved an interlocutory application seeking the full reversion of the remaining unfilled seats. At a hearing on Thursday, the Medical Counselling Committee told the court that the NEET-SS qualifying percentile would be reduced to 30, and that all remaining unfilled in-service seats would be returned to the State.

The association said 111 candidates were already waiting, and that more applicants were expected to follow. In the previous year, Tamil Nadu surrendered 145 seats to the All India Quota, of which 39 were reverted.

Concerns over seat value

Some senior government doctors questioned the outcome. One said the cut-off was first kept at the 50th percentile, then 151 unfilled high-value super speciality seats were taken for non-service All India candidates, and now 40 seats had come back after the percentile was lowered to 30. The seats often belong to neglected disciplines, the doctor said, describing the sequence as a setback to the Directorate-General of Health Services and calling for the eligibility cut-off to be removed from the prospectus and a fair counselling process for service candidates from next year.

Another doctor said the vacant seats were unlikely to attract many takers, attributing the declining interest to limited financial and promotional opportunities.