Doctors' body files plea in Supreme Court challenging NEET PG 2025 reduced cutoff percentile
Supreme Court of India
New Delhi: Amid the strong opposition from members of the medical fraternity against the National Board of Examinations (NBE) decision to lower the cut-off percentile, a doctors' body has taken up the matter before the Supreme Court.
Challenging the "arbitrary and unprecedented reduction of qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET-PG 2025–26, including zero and negative scores", the United Doctors Front (UDF) National President Dr. Lakshya Mittal, along with others, has 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.
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, UDF mentioned in a release.
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 Dr. Lakshya Mittal & Ors, 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 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 has 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.
Expressing his opinion on the matter, UDF President Dr. Mittal mentioned in an X post, "Medical Education cannot be auctioned.!! Dr. Lakshya Mittal & ors have approached the Hon’ble Supreme Court via Adv Satyam & Neema against the shocking #NEETPG cut-off reduction to negative marks. This is about merit, ethics & patient lives."
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