“Pertains to policy domain” Supreme Court refuses to entertain plea seeking reduction of qualifying cut-off for NEET-PG by a further 5 percentile

A Supreme Court bench of Justices Chandrachud and Surya Kant today refused to entertain a plea seeking reduction of qualifying cut -off by a further five percentile. The court while disposing the plea noted that such an order would be trenching upon the academic/ policy domain.

The application seeking the above relief was filed in an already disposed off writ petition wherein the petitioner had sought directions of the court to to take part in NEET PG Counselling for 2021 for allotment of remaining vacant seats.

When the matter came up for hearing, Prashant Bhushan, advocate, appearing for the petitioners submitted that in 2021 because of the pandemic, the government had reduced the qualifying cut-off by 20 percentile and this year it has been reduced to 15 percentile. Bhushan added that a the bulk of seats will be filled up if the government does so.

ASG Aishwarya Bhat, appearing for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare submitted that there were initially 92,000 candidates were eligible for counselling for 40,000 seats which were available. The ASG added that after lowering of percentile another 25,000 candidates became eligible. The ASG brought to the court’s notice that 6206 seats were available in the mop up round and after 4747 candidates took up admissions, 1459 seats remained vacant and were available for stray round. The ASG argued that out of the 1459 seats, 1177 have been allotted thereby reducing the vacant seats to 288. The ASG added that the results are to be declared today and that the date of joining is May 7, 2022. The ASG contended that the remaining seats pertain to teaching courses and usually remain vacant.

The court on hearing the submissions of the counsels took note of the fact that the current curriculum is already behind schedule. The court held that it is inclined to interfere in matters such as this and in order to warrant its interference there should be an act of manifest arbitrariness. The court held that the union government took the decision after due consideration and that its interference would be trenching upon the academic/ policy domain. The court therefore dismissed the plea.

Case title: Nepalli Sai Vikash Vs Union of India