Decision not to reduce cut-off percentile: The Supreme Court agrees to hear a plea against Centre’s decision in Neet BDS 2021

The Supreme Court in the case Kunal v Union of India & Or’s observed and agrees to hear a plea by the BDS aspirant for lowering the percentile for qualification of NEET BDS Course for the academic session 2021-2022. The plea challenging the order dated 07.05.2022 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s.

The petitioner in the plea contended and sought for directing the competent authorities to conduct Mop Up round of counselling for the vacant seats after publishing of revised qualifying cut off percentile.

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

The Court noted that on 01.05.2022 the Supreme Court asked the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, within a period of 1 week to consider afresh its decision to not lower the qualifying cut-off percentile for admissions to the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS).

the Executive Committee recommended for reducing the Qualifying Cut-off Percentile regards the NEET – BDS 2021 by 10.00 percentile for each category on an ordered dated 6th April, 2022., further stated by the petitioner in the plea.

The meeting held on 06.04.2022, the Executive Committee of the Dental Council of India (DCI) it was recommended that the Centre to reduce the qualifying percentile while considering the fact that last date for BDS admissions have been extended to 15.05.2022 from 11.04.2022., were the directions issued by the bench comprising of Justice DY Chandrachud and the justice Hima Kohli while hearing the matter.

The bench comprising of Justice DY Chandrachud heard the matter on the urgent listening as Paramjit Singh Patwalia, Senior Advocate seeks urgent listing of the matter before the bench and therefore the agreed to hear the plea.

The bench concluded that it can be recalled on 05.01.2022. The top court directed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to Consider against its stand to not Lower the qualifying cut-off percentile.