The Supreme Court is set to hear multiple pleas challenging the reduction in the qualifying cut-off percentile for the NEET-PG 2025–26 examination. Senior advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan, representing the petitioners, argued that there were enough qualified candidates to fill all postgraduate seats, making a cut-off reduction unnecessary. On the contrary, senior advocate D.S. Naidu, supporting the cut-off reduction, stated that lowering the percentile would not compromise academic standards.
The bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe refrained from delving into the merits of the issue and scheduled a detailed hearing for Tuesday. The matter originated from a public interest litigation challenging the decision to significantly reduce the qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET-PG 2025–26. The plea contended that lowering the standards post-results declaration was arbitrary and unconstitutional, potentially jeopardizing patient safety and medical education integrity.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare defended the cut-off reduction, citing the need to optimize healthcare infrastructure usage due to a large number of vacant postgraduate seats. Around 70,000 seats were available for the academic session 2025–26, with nearly 20,000 postgraduate seats expected to remain unfilled nationwide. The decision made over one lakh additional candidates eligible for the third round of counselling without compromising merit or standards, as similar reductions had been implemented in previous years.
