Grace Marks not Statutory right! HC upholds NMC provision, disposes of plea by MBBS students

Hyderabad: Observing that medical students cannot seek grace marks as a matter of right, especially when the National Medical Commission (NMC) stopped the provision, the Telangana High Court recently denied issuing any directions to the National Medical Commission (NMC) or other authorities governing the medical education to grant grace marks to the MBBS students who could not clear their first-year examinations.

Although the HC bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Anil Kumar disposed of the pleas filed by the MBBS students in this regard, it left the issue open to the authorities to consider the students' cases in the current case's peculiar facts.

However, the bench clarified, "This will not serve as a precedent, because we are upholding the legal validity of the new regulation of the medical council."

NMC discontinued the provision of grace marks in its amended curriculum of the Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME), 2023. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the final Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) Regulations 2023 were published by the National Medical Commission (NMC) on 01.08.2023.

The document also included the Phase-wise training time distribution for professional development. Regarding the assessment of the MBBS examination, NMC specified the attendance, internal assessment, and university examinations including the criteria for passing the examination.

Also Read: NMC releases final regulations on MBBS Curriculum

After the publication of the CBME Curriculum Guidelines, NMC issued a corrigendum on September 01, 2023, and the UG Board of NMC introduced an amendment to the passing criteria for MBBS exams. Modifying the passing criteria, the Commission mentioned, "In subjects that have two papers, the learner must secure minimum 40% of marks in aggregate (both papers together) to pass in the said subject."

As per the latest media report by the Times of India, the counsel for the MBBS students, Chikkudu Prabhakar argued that the authorities had modified the regulations abruptly in 2023, when the petitioners appeared in their first-year examinations for the first time. He argued that under the old rules, students failing in a subject, used to be awarded five grace marks. However, the new regulations in 2023 removed that provision.

The petitioners' counsel argued that the exams were conducted under the old regulations and the results were declared under the new rules. He said that the students have a legitimate expectation that they too would get grace marks and get promoted to the second year. However, due to the changed rules, the students who failed with just a mark were also detained in the first year.

However, after examining the records, the bench noted that the new regulations came into force on August 1, 2023, while the first-year exams were held three months later i.e. in November. Therefore, the bench said that the allegation that the new regulation was brought into force retrospectively was incorrect.

The Court agreed with the petitioners that the mark sheets of the students referred to the old regulations. Referring to this, the bench observed that it must have been a genuine error that would not render the regulation unlawful. It noted that the petitioners have neither any fundamental or statutory rights for grant of grace marks.

Clarifying that the NMC UG Medical Education Board has the authority to determine the standards of medical education, the court noted that the petitioners also do not have any accrued or vested right to the grant of grace marks.

The bench held that the petitioners have to acquire the qualifying marks as per the regulations prescribed at the time of the exam. Therefore, merely because the provision regarding the grant of grace marks has been dispensed with, the same would not render the regulations arbitrary.

Also Read: With no grace marks from NMC, 101 MBBS students of Medinirai Medical College fail exam