New Delhi: Aspirants who have taken NEET BDS 2021 have moved to the supreme court seeking reduction in the cutoff percentile for admission to the BDS courses.


The NEET BDS 2021 aspirants have moved to the SC challenging the recent order directed by the union health ministry, which declined to lower the cutoff percentile for the BDS admission for the academic year 2021-22. 

The Apex Court bench consisted of Justice Chandrachud and the counsel for the BDS aspirants was Senior Advocate Paramjit Singh Patwalia, who sought urgent listing of the petition. The SC bench has listed the matter for further hearing in the coming weeks. 

The aspirants have sought the SC after the top court bench had ordered the Union Health Ministry for fresh consideration on the matter of lowering the cutoff percentile for the BDS aspirants. 

 According to the latest reports, the top court bench had issued such an order on May 1, after it took note of the fact that the deadline for BDS admissions had been extended from April 11 to May 15. 

Even the Executive Committee of the Dental Council of India (DCI) in its meeting on April 6, had suggested the centre for reducing the qualifying percentile for the BDS admissions. 

It was the disagreement of the BDS aspirants that based on the eligibility criteria as mentioned in the BDS Regulations, the petitioners along with thousands of other students failed to secure a minimum qualifying marks, which resulted in them being ineligible for admission into BDS courses.

The BDS aspirants referred to the decision taken by the Executive Committee of DCI on April 6, to authenticate their claims made in the petition, when the committee had recommended reducing the cutoff percentile for NEET BDS 2021 by 10th percentile for each of the categories. 

Apart from that, the BDS aspirants also sought permission from the court for instructing the authorities to conduct a Mop-Up round of counselling for the vacant BDS seats after the publication of revised cutoff percentile. 

It should be mentioned in this context that last year, the Supreme Court had set aside the Centre's decision because it had provided relief to the BDS aspirants by lowering the cutoff by 10th percentile. 

The bench had held at that time stating that if reducing minimum marks amounts to lowering the standards, the first respondent wouldn't do so for super specialty courses. 

Further, the bench is in agreement with Mr. Maninder Singh, who learned from the Senior Counsel for the Petitioners that reducing the minimum marks and lowering the cutoff percentile for admission to the first-year BDS course would not amount to lowering the standards of education. 

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