The Supreme Court on Monday ordered that vacant seats in first year BDS course in government and private medical colleges for the year 2020-2021 should be filled up from the candidates who appeared in NEET-UG by lowering the marks by 10 percentile.
A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Krishna Murari set aside the December 30, 2020 decision of Union government on reducing the minimum marks for admission to BDS course, saying it suffered from the vices of illegality and irrationality.
Acting on a writ petition by Harshit Agarwal and others, the court rejected the Union government's contention that taking such a move would lower the standards of dental course.
The Centre also maintained that there are 2.77 lakh registered Dentists in the country. It further pointed out there is one Dentist for every 6080 persons which is better than the WHO norms of 1 : 7500.
"There are about 7,000 seats available for admission to BDS course. We are not impressed by the argument that there are sufficient number of Dentists in the country and, therefore, there is no harm in the seats being unfilled," the bench said.
The court pointed out the Dental Council of India itself recommended for lowering the minimum marks and the regulations also provided for it.
The court also said the total number of seats available for the academic year 2020-2021 for MBBS are 91,367, BDS 26,949 and AYUSH 52,720 making it a total of 1,71,036 seats, while the NEET qualified candidates are 7,71,500.
"Thus, the basis for the decision to not reduce minimum marks that there are sufficient eligible candidates is without considering the vital facts," the bench said.
The bench asked the Managements of private Dental Colleges to consider reducing the fee charged by them to encourage students to join the Colleges, as the government contended it proved to be a deterrent for the seats not being filled up.
Out of 7,000 seats, 265 are vacant in government colleges and remaining in private Dental Colleges.
The judgement said candidates belonging to the general category and SC/ST/OBC categories who have secured 40 and 30 percentile would be eligible to be considered for admission in the first year BDS course in 2020-21.