Supreme Court directive enforces mandatory filtering before state stray vacancy round; Reporting for UG stray round begins today
In a stringent move rooted in the Supreme Court’s directions, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has issued an urgent notice to all state counselling authorities and NEET UG 2025 candidates ahead of the stray vacancy round. The directive, dated November 15, 2025, follows the apex court’s orders in the Contempt Petition of 2022 in W.P. No. 223 of 2022, Shubhankar Patnaik vs. K. Ramesh Reddy, which mandates mandatory filtering of candidates who have already secured seats under the All India Quota (AIQ) before states begin their stray vacancy rounds.The Supreme Court’s intervention aims to address long-standing issues of seat hoarding, duplicate admissions and last-minute vacancies that disrupt the fairness and efficiency of the medical admission system.
AIQ allottees must be excluded from state rounds
The DGHS notice makes it unambiguously clear that no candidate allotted a seat under the AIQ stray vacancy round conducted by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) can participate in state stray vacancy counselling. MCC has already published the final result of the AIQ stray round, and the government has categorically stated that there is no provision for resignation at this stage of the process.This means that AIQ allottees have reached the final and binding stage of admission, with no option to relinquish their seats and attempt admission through state counselling.State counselling bodies have been instructed to eliminate AIQ-selected candidates from their stray vacancy lists before processing seats. States must download the list of AIQ allottees from the MCC’s data-sharing portal and ensure the removal of any candidate who holds a national quota seat.Candidates can check the official notice as provided here.
States directed to ensure zero overlap
The DGHS advisory emphasises that filtering AIQ candidates is not a procedural formality but a mandatory compliance requirement flowing directly from the Supreme Court’s orders. States must ensure that there is zero overlap between AIQ seat holders and state-level stray vacancy candidates.The measure is intended to prevent wastage of seats—an issue repeatedly flagged by the Supreme Court—and to uphold the integrity of the centralised admission system. Officials note that previous counselling cycles have witnessed instances of candidates holding seats across quotas, leading to unfilled seats even after multiple rounds.
Reporting for UG stray round begins November 16
The notice confirms that reporting for the UG Stray Vacancy Round 2025 will begin tomorrow, November 16, from 09:00 am onwards. Candidates who secured seats in the MCC’s stray vacancy round must report to their allotted institutions within the specified timeframe, completing document verification and admission formalities as per the counselling schedule. This marks the final operational step in the NEET UG 2025 admission process at the national level.
