NEW DELHI: For the current academic year, 2021-22, the Supreme Court cleared the decks for postgraduate medical counselling and admissions, including the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and economically weaker sections (EWS) reservations.

The constitutional legality of the 27% OBC and 10% EWS reservation for the NEET-UG and NEET-PG exams was affirmed by a bench led by Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and A.S. Bopanna. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, stated that it would rule on the justification for the Rs 8 lakh income threshold for the EWS category in March of this year.

After a day-long hearing on petitions challenging the validity of the EWS quota in postgraduate medical admissions and the Centre's argument in favour of the quota, the court said on Thursday that there is a situation where counselling must begin in the national interest, which was also a key demand of protesting resident doctors.

"We are in a scenario where counselling needs to begin in the national interest," stated a bench led by Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and A.S. Bopanna. The Centre's Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that all candidates qualified for the EWS quota had received certificates for registration based on existing criteria, and that seats in all government institutions had been extended to accommodate the EWS quota.

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