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

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today took up a public interest litigation challenging the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) decision to reduce the qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET PG 2025 and issued notice in the matter.

A Bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe heard the plea and agreed to examine the issue. The case is scheduled to be heard next on Friday, February 6, 2026.

The bench 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, reports PTI.

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".

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

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.

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- Policy Failure! Outrage over NEET PG 2025 reduced cutoff escalates