NEET BDS 2021: Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Plea Against Centre's Decision To Not Reduce Cut-Off Percentile

On Monday, Senior Advocate Paramjit Singh Patwalia, to seek urgent listing of the plea, mentioned the matter before the bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and the bench agreed to hear the same on Wednesday.

It may be noted that the Top Court on May 1, 2022 had asked the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to consider afresh its decision to not lower the qualifying cut-off percentile for admissions to the Bachelor of Dental Surgery(BDS) within a period of 1 week.

The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli issued the direction considering the fact that last date for BDS admissions have been extended to May 15(from April 11) and that the Executive Committee of the Dental Council of India (DCI), in its meeting held on April 6, recommended the Centre to reduce the qualifying percentile.

It was stated in the petition that based on the eligibility criteria laid down as per the BDS Regulations, the Petitioners, along with thousands of other students did not obtain the minimum marks and therefore did not qualify as eligible candidates for admission into BDS Courses.

The petitioners in the plea further stated that on 06.04.2022, the Executive Committee recommended for reducing the Qualifying Cut-off Percentile regards the NEET - BDS 2021 by 10.00 percentile for each category.

Against this backdrop petitioners had further sought for consequently directing the competent authorities to conduct Mop Up round of counselling for the vacant seats after publishing of revised qualifying cut off percentile.

The petition has been filed through Advocate Krishna Dev.

Case Title: Kunal v Union of India & Ors