Must be no 'devious reason': Supreme Court directs NBE to explain NEET PG 2025 reduced cutoff

New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India today asked the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to file an affidavit explaining why it sharply reduced the qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET PG 2025, stating that the Court must be satisfied that the decision was not taken for any 'devious reason'.

Questioning the basis of the Board’s decision, the Division Bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe observed that the issue requires balancing two important concerns. The Bench said that on one hand, there is a concern that medical seats should not remain vacant, while on the other hand, lowering standards excessively may affect the quality of postgraduate medical education.

While hearing petitions challenging the January 13, 2026, notice issued by NBEMS, which reduced the minimum qualifying percentile for the third round of NEET-PG 2025 counselling, the Bench remarked, "The Court will examine whether the decision taken was drastically wrong."

"Our conscience has to be satisfied that there is no devious reason, that's all," said the court while directing NBEMS to submit an affidavit explaining the rationale behind the decision, reports Live Law.

Also read- Supreme Court issues notice to NBE, NMC on plea challenging NEET PG 2025 reduced cutoff

On Wednesday, the top court issued notices to the Union Government of India, the NBEMS, the National Medical Commission and others and asked them to file their responses within a week.

The plea challenged a January 13 notification issued by NBEMS, through which the qualifying percentile for NEET-PG 2025-26 was reduced. According to the petitioners, the cut-off has been brought down to unusually low levels, including zero and even negative percentiles.

Medical Dialogues had reported that United Doctors Front (UDF) National President Dr. Lakshya Mittal, along with others, approached the Apex Court of India seeking directions to quash the NBEMS notification and issue directions to restore and protect minimum qualifying standards in postgraduate medical education, calling the "arbitrary and unprecedented reduction of qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET-PG 2025–26, including zero and negative scores".

The PIL, registered as Diary No. 3085/2026, has been filed under Article 32 of the Constitution of India through Advocate Satyam Singh Rajput, along with Advocate Adarsh Singh and Advocate-on-Record Neema.

Filing the plea, UDF has challenged the notification dated 13.01.2026 issued by NBEMS, which has drastically diluted the minimum qualifying standards for postgraduate medical admissions.

NBE in a notice dated 13.01.2026, reduced the minimum qualifying percentile cut-off for counselling of the third round of National Eligibility-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) 2025-2026 for various categories of candidates.

As per the revised qualifying percentiles for NEET-PG 2025, for the academic session 2025-2026, for the General/EWS, General PwBD, SC/ST/OBC(Including PwBD of SC/ST/OBC) categories, the revised qualifying cut-off is 7th, 5th, and 0th percentile, respectively. Therefore, the revised cut-off score after lowering the cut-off percentile is 103 for General/EWS, 90 for General PwBD, and -40 for SC/ST/OBC(Including PwBD of SC/ST/OBC) categories, respectively.

The petition led by the doctor highlighted that allowing candidates with abnormally low or negative scores to qualify for postgraduate medical training poses a serious threat to patient safety, public health, and the integrity of the medical profession. It has been argued that the NBE's decision is arbitrary, unconstitutional, and violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

Further, the PIL has submitted that such dilution of merit is contrary to settled judicial principles and violates the statutory mandate under the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, which obligates regulatory bodies to maintain minimum standards in medical education.

In today's hearing (February 6, 2026), Senior Advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan, appearing for the petitioners, argued that the rules allow lowering of cut-offs only if there are not enough eligible candidates.

"If a sufficient number of candidates in the respective categories fail to secure minimum marks as prescribed, the Central Government in consultation with the National Medical Commission, may at its discretion, lower the minimum marks. So the test is you should not have enough candidates," Adv Sankarnarayanan informed the court as per Live Law reports.

He pointed out that approximately 80,000 seats are available while over 1,28,000 candidates fall within the qualifying percentiles of various categories, i.e., the 50th, 45th or 40th percentiles.

"So let them answer that. You cannot go all the way down to minus 40 (marks) which means if they didn't sit for the exam they will be in a better position," he said.

Sankarnarayanan further argued that "Standards ought to be stricter at the postgraduate level. In fact Preeti Srivastava judgment says higher standards for higher levels, not lesser."

After noting the arguments, Justice Narasimha observed that

"On the one hand, we have this competing value to protect that seats should not go to waste. At the same time, there is a pressure that candidates are not coming, so please reduce the cut off. Then argument will be that the standards are being lowered and the counter argument is that seats are going waste. So somewhere there has to be a balance."

UDF, through the petition, has sought appropriate directions from the Hon’ble Supreme Court, including quashing of the impugned NBEMS notification and issuance of directions to restore and protect minimum qualifying standards in postgraduate medical education. The matter has been recently filed and is likely to be listed before the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the coming days.

Strongly opposing this decision, a section of the medical fraternity had pointed out that after the cut-off reduction, even those who scored -40 marks in the exam will be eligible to take admission in the highly sought-after clinical specialities, which, according to doctors, will compromise merit.

Also read- Doctors' body files plea in Supreme Court challenging NEET PG 2025 reduced cutoff percentile