SC relief to students who lost MBBS seats after missing fee payment deadlines

New Delhi: Granting relief to three National Eligibility-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET UG) candidates from Tamil Nadu, who lost their MBBS seats after failing to complete the fee payment within the stipulated time due to technical glitches, the Supreme Court recently allowed them to make payment by December 10 and secure admission.

With this, the Apex Court bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice AS Chandurkar restored these students' chance for MBBS admission.

Live Law has reported that even though initially, the bench was not convinced, and observed that allowing relief primarily because of financial difficulties would be opening Pandora's box, later the Court agreed to grant relief after the issue of the last date of payment being a holiday was brought to the Court's notice.

Taking note of the peculiar circumstances of the case, the top court bench granted relief to the students. However, it clarified that the order shall not be treated as a precedent for future matters.

Also Read: Madras HC relief to MBBS aspirant who missed fee deadline due to financial constraints

Accordingly, the bench directed the State to allot seats to these three candidates from the available vacant management quota seats, ensuring that they are not deprived of admission due to circumstances beyond their control, Live Law has reported.

Among these three students, one of the petitioners, Vicksh, approached the Supreme Court bench because the last date of payment fell on a bank holiday and, therefore, the payment for admission could not be completed. The other two candidates could not complete payment due to financial difficulties.

One of these two candidates had challenged the Madras High Court order, which had refused to grant relief to her. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported about the candidate, who appeared in the National Eligibility--Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2025 examination and secured 251 marks in the entrance examination. The petitioner applied under the minority quota for both the Government quota counselling and Management quota counselling and was allotted a seat in the Madha Medical College under the minority quota in the 3rd round of counselling which took place from 30.10.2025. to 01.11.2025 vide provisional allotment list published on 03.11.2025.

Even though a single-judge bench granted relief to the candidate and allowed her to join the course, later the Division Bench of the High Court, comprising Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq, set aside the single judge's order and noted that the time scheme specified in the prospectus had to be followed by the candidates. Further, the bench observed that there may be many students, who like the candidate, could not join the allotted college in time.

Now, the Apex Court bench has granted relief to all three candidates by allowing them to secure MBBS admission by completing the payment within Wednesday.

Also Read: MBBS aspirant moves SC after losing seat over missed fee payment deadline