Percentage Or Percentile For NEET PG? Petition in Delhi High court

Filing the plea, the petitioners sought a reduction in the NEET-PG percentile prescribed by Medical Council of India as they contended that lowering the percentage does not lower the merit.

It should be noted in this context that the National board of Examinations (NBE) reduced the cut-off for NEET-PG 2021 counselling by 15 percentile.

Such a decision was taken by NBE after the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) of the National Medical Commission (NMC) directed NBE to reduce the cut-off.

Doctors had been demanding a reduction in the cut-off marks for appearing in the mop-up round of counselling as they pointed out that every year a large number of seats remain vacant due to the high qualifying marks.

However, the petitioners pointed out before the High Court bench that despite such lowering of percentile on a yearly basis, around 5,000 seats remain vacant every year. They also argued that percentile is different from percentage and therefore, lowering the percentile would not compromise on the merit.

Also Read: Breaking News: NBE Reduces NEET PG 2021 Cut-off percentile, check out details

As per the latest media report by the Live Law, previously, the Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla had also questioned the percentile system for preparing the merit list. The bench had opined that there was a chance that meritorious candidates might remain left out merely because they did not fit in the percentile cut-off while on the other hand, the seats in medical colleges remained vacant.

At that time, the bench had expressed its opinion in favour of percentage system.

"We understand if you put a benchmark in terms of percentage. Then if there are vacancies, let them be. But you are on percentile system and despite this lowering of percentile, it's not working," the bench had noted on the last date.

"Dare we say but the difference between 100 percentile and 50 percentile may be just 2-3 marks. You know how it works. In 0.5 marks there may be difference of 100-200 ranks. These are all students who got into MBBS through an All India Exam. It's not easy. You are actually putting a doubt on your own education system if you think that MBBS students are not competent to undertake the PG course… We are not saying you compromise with the quality or take zero marks candidate. But by percentile, you're consciously restricting number of people into counselling without looking into their actual merit which is the percentage," the bench had added.

During the recent hearing of the case, the counsel for the petitioners, Advocate Varun Singh argued that the students who are appearing for NEET-PG examination, are already qualified MBBS doctors. Therefore, if the percentile system is adopted, the examination authority doubts its own education system.

Further, it was argued by the petitioners' counsel that the authorities were violating the fundamental rights of meritorious candidates by leaving them out on the sole ground that they did not qualify in the 50 percentile.

To support their argument, the petitioners relied upon the Bombay High Court judgment in the case of Saurabh Chaudhary v. Union of India, where the HC had declared that the right of a meritorious student to get admission in a postgraduate course is a fundamental and human right and it is required to be protected. Reliance was also placed on the Gujarat High Court's judgment in Vinod Pandya V. State.

Reference was made to the Supreme Court judgment in Index Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, where the top court had declared the MP Govt's policy of prescribing the managements from filling up vacant seats as an excessive and unreasonable restriction.

Referring to this, the counsel for the petitioners submitted, "Even in this case, fact that colleges unable to fill seats is not their fault. It is something Respondents have come up with… it is admitted position that seats are going vacant because of a category created by them. Then why should we have those seats altogether?"

Further the counsel relied on Rule 9 of Post-Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000 which specified that PG medical students shall be selected on the basis of their "academic merit".

Taking note of these submissions and agreeing with the proposition, the division bench of Delhi High Court remarked, "Let's talk about Delhi University. They take students up to 98%. If you convert it to percentile, they may only score 30 percentile. It has nothing to do with their merit."

On the other hand, the counsel appearing for the Respondents, T Singh Dev prayed to demonstrate before the court why the percentile system had to be introduced and how it benefitted enhancing inclusivity of candidates.