Allahabad High Court Rejects PIL Questioning Lowering Of NEET-PG 2025-26 Cut-Offs

The Allahabad High Court today rejected a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) plea challenging the decision of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to reduce the qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET-PG 2025-26 to zero percentile and a score of minus 40 for certain categories.

A bench of Chief Justice Arun Bhansali and Justice Kshitij Shailendra rejected the PIL plea noting that the Delhi HC has already dismissed a similar plea and a petition on this subject matter is also pending before the Supreme Court. A detailed order is awaited.

The Petitioner, Advocate Abhinav Gaur, termed the move ultra vires to Article 16(4) of the Constitution of India. The plea challenges the decision on the grounds that a substantial reduction in the Cut-off marks for NEET-PG 2025 will undermine the sanctity of a merit-based selection process.

The plea highlighted that when the NEET-PG 2025 results were declared on August 19, 2025, the qualifying percentiles were as per the original NEET-PG 2025 Information Bulletin

50th percentile for General/EWS,

45th percentile for General-PwBD, and

40th percentile for SC/ST/OBC (including PwBD in those categories).

However, the plea added, after more than 18,000 seats remained vacant following the second round of counselling, the Board drastically reduced the qualifying criteria. Now, candidates from the SC, ST, and OBC categories are eligible for counselling with a qualifying percentile of '0' [cut-off score of ' minus 40' out of 800].

For general category candidates, the qualifying percentile has been lowered to the 7th percentile, resulting in a revised cut-off score of 103. For unreserved candidates with benchmark disabilities (PwBD), the qualifying percentile has been reduced to 5 (corresponding cut-off score of 90).

The petition also pointed out that in the General (EWS) category, the cut-off has been reduced from 276 to 103, whereas in the General-PwBD category, it has been reduced from 255 to 90.

However, in the SC/ST/OBC category, the same was reduced from 235 to -40 marks, which, the PIL plea argued, will adversely impact public health and patient safety, which are matters of paramount public concern and involve a high level of academic precision, as pleaded by the petitioner.

It had been further pleaded that such a quality of doctors who do not have the minimum threshold to qualify for the examination would affect the right to health and life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

Advocates Vibhu Rai, Ankit Shukla and Achlesh Mishra appeared for the petitioner.