NEET-PG : Plea In Supreme Court Challenges Lowering Of NEET-PG 2025-26 Qualifying Cut-Off Percentile

A public interest litigation has beenfiled in the Supreme Court challenging the notice dated January 13 issued by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences which reduced the qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET-PG 2025-26.

The PIL, filed by social worker Harisharan Devgan, neurosurgeon Saurav Kumar, Dr Lakshya Mittal (President, United Doctors Front) and Dr Akash Soni (Member, World Medical Association) points out that vide the impugned notice, the qualifying cut-off was reduced to abnormally low levels (even zero and negative).

Invoking Article 32 of the Constitution, the petitioners raise a constitutional challenge, contending that reduction of the qualifying standards for PG medical education is arbitrary and violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. They claim that the lowering of the standards poses a risk to patient safety, public health and integrity of the medical profession.

"Medicine is not an ordinary vocation, it directly implicates human life, bodily integrity, and dignity...the impugned action, justified primarily on the ground of filling vacant seats, abolishes merit as a criterion, converts a competitive examination into a mere administrative formality, and institutionalizes dilution of professional standards in a life-critical field", the plea states.

It is further averred that dilution of merit at the PG level is contrary to the statutory mandate of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019.

The petition has been filed through AoR Neema, with the assistance of Advocates Satyam Singh Rajput and Adarsh Singh

Case Title: Harisharan Devgan v. Union of India, Diary No. 3085/2026