The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed its “anxiety” over the uncertainty students face every year, particularly those planning to join professional courses like medicine and engineering, and called for streamlining the whole system for stress-free admission and counselling.

The observation came as the top court directed the Maharashtra government to conduct the final round of counselling for postgraduate medical and dental courses in the state on or before June 14.

“Our anxiety is for the students. This happens every year and there is uncertainty every year for students,” Justice M.R. Shah, sitting on a bench headed by Justice Indu Malhotra, said.

“First they have to prepare for exams and get good marks. After that they have to struggle hard for admission, counselling and other processes. They have to undergo tremendous stress throughout the year. Why don’t you streamline the whole system so that these problems do not come up?” Justice Shah asked lawyers who had appeared for the Maharashtra government and the Medical Council of India.

The bench was dealing with petitions filed by students who had complained that only two rounds of counselling had been conducted and the state had not taken any step to fill up the seats to be transferred to the general category following the court’s May 30 judgment.

The court had on May 30 stopped the Maharashtra government from applying from this session the 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections in medical and dental postgraduate courses, saying the admission process had started before the quota was introduced.

The admission process had begun in November 2018, several months before the EWS quota for general-category students was introduced in Parliament in January through the 103rd constitutional amendment. “We are very much concerned about the plight of the students…. You (the government) are responsible. We are telling the states as well as the Union of India to please look into the issue and come out with a solution. Because it will have an impact on the entire career of the students,” Justice Shah observed.

Courts across the country have over the years been flooded with petitions by students complaining about irregularities in admission, counselling, setting question papers and valuation.

Justice Malhotra said the Maharashtra government was bound to implement the court’s directive to allocate the seats vacated by the EWS quota students in the wake of the May 30 judgment.

The state, the judge said, had conducted only two rounds of counselling till May 9, and none after that, leaving a large number of meritorious students in a quandary.

“It has to be done. Order of the Supreme Court has to be complied with. We can’t have meritorious students thrown out,” Justice Malhotra said.

“The State of Maharashtra is solely responsible for this entire situation,” Justice Shah observed.

The court then passed a written order directing the state to complete the process of admission, including counselling, by June 14.

No court in the country, it added, would entertain any further petition/application on the current admission process for postgraduate medical and dental courses in Maharashtra.

On May 30, a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Aniruddha Bose had quashed the implementation of the EWS quota from this session after some general-category candidates, including Rajat Rajendra Agrawal and Mohd Asif Nizamuddin, had challenging the move.

The court had then said it was “reminded of the time-tested principle of law that the modalities of selection cannot be changed after initiation of the process”.