SC issues notice to Centre on plea against reduction of NEET PG cut off
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought responses from the Centre and other authorities on a plea challenging the decision of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to drastically reduce the qualifying cut off percentiles for NEET PG 2025–26.
A bench comprising Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe issued notices to the Union of India, the NBEMS, the National Medical Commission and others. The matter has been listed for further hearing on February 6.
The court was hearing a petition filed by social worker Harisharan Devgan, Dr Saurav Kumar, Dr Lakshya Mittal and Dr Akash Soni, which alleged that the reduction in cut off violates Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
With over 18,000 postgraduate medical seats remaining vacant across the country, the NBEMS revised the qualifying percentiles for NEET PG 2025 admissions.
For reserved categories, the cut off was reduced to zero from 40 percentile, which would allow candidates scoring as low as minus 40 out of 800 to participate in the third round of counselling for PG medical seats.
According to a notice published by the NBEMS, the NEET PG cut off for the general category has been reduced to seven percentile from 50.
The plea contended that eligibility criteria cannot be altered after the commencement of the selection process, as aspirants prepared, competed and made career choices based on the originally notified cut offs.
It further stated that postgraduate medical education cannot be treated as a commercial exercise and that regulatory authorities are required to prevent dilution of standards.
Several sections of the medical community have termed the NBEMS decision to drastically reduce the cut off percentile for candidates across all categories for NEET PG 2025–26 as “unprecedented and illogical”.