SC notice to Centre on plea challenging NBEMS's decision to reduce NEET PG cut-off percentile

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought responses from the Centre and others 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 of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe issued notices to the Union of India, the NBEMS, the National Medical Commission and others. The matter is listed for next hearing on February 6.

With over 18,000 postgraduate medical seats across the country remaining vacant, the Board revised the qualifying percentiles for NEET-PG 2025 admissions, reducing it to zero from 40 percentile for reserved categories -- which will make even those scoring as low as minus 40 out of 800 to take part in the third round of counselling for PG medical seats.

According to the notice published by NBEMS, the NEET PG cutoff for the general category has been reduced to seven percentile from 50.

The top court was hearing a plea filed by social worker Harisharan Devgan, Dr Saurav Kumar, Dr Lakshya Mittal and Dr Akash Soni which submitted that the cut-off reduction violates Article 14 and Article 21.

The plea contended that eligibility criteria cannot be altered after commencement of the selection process, as aspirants prepared, competed, and made career choices based on the originally notified cut-offs.

The petition says that PG 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 as "unprecedented and illogical" the NBEMS's decision to drastically reduce the cut-off percentile for candidates across all categories for NEET-PG 2025-26.