Dismissing a plea seeking to recall the government’s decision to reduce cut-off percentile for postgraduate seats for medical courses by 15 per cent, the Delhi High Court has disapproved of the practice of arraying the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) as a party to the cases before it. The government had decided to reduce the cut-off percentile after a number of medical colleges, mostly privately-run, complained that thousands of seats were going vacant this year due to the high qualifying percentile.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar pulled up the petitioner during a hearing last week for making an allegation of corruption against the government.

Mohinder Kumar, a professor of surgery in a medical college, sought direction from the Prime Minister to order an investigation into alleged corrupt practices adopted by the Health Ministry in the issue.

Turning down his plea, the bench noted that there is “not a single factual averment as to what was wrong with the decision of lowering the percentile which was taken by the ministry on recommendations of the Medical Council of India”.

“Other than making a bald allegation of corruption against authorities without any specific details, the writ petition does not disclose any ground on which the decision of the government can be challenged,” it said. “Admittedly, the Prime Minister’s Office has no role in the matter at all so far as the decision-making is concerned. Such practice must be deprecated,” the court observed.

Admission to postgraduate seats in medical colleges in India is based on performance in the National Eligibility and Entrance Test-PG (NEET-PG).

As per current regulations, for admission in any postgraduate course, it’s necessary for a candidate to obtain a minimum of marks at 50th percentile in NEET-PG, while students belonging to reserved categories need to secure a minimum of marks at the 40th percentile.

Persons with disabilities, on the other hand, have to secure marks at the 45th percentile. The National Board of Examination had conducted NEET-PG 2018 on January 7, 2018.

Source: IE

  NEET 2018