The Delhi High Court, on March 14, remarked that students are forced to go to places such as Ukraine, pointing out the vacant seats in PG medical courses. A Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla was hearing a group of students' plea to relax the cut-off percentile.
Asking the Centre to submit all the details related to the fixing percentile of cut-off in NEET PG medical courses for this year, the matter was posted for hearing on March 23. During the course of the hearing, the petitioners pointed out the difficulties in the 'percentile' criteria. They also said that the criteria are different from the 'percentage' system where the classification is based on merit, as per a report in IANS.
The Bench observed that there is a dearth of doctors, whether MBBS or specialists. Further, it observed that people have to go to places like Ukraine because of this situation. "From the standpoint of doctors, the percentile system is unconstitutional because it debars qualified doctors which fall below the rank of 50 percentile to be considered in the merit list. In the present circumstances when there is an urgent need for specialised doctors, consideration of PG courses beyond the 50 percentiles would allow the Respondent to fill up all seats which remain vacant year after year and reduce the shortage of specialised doctors across different hospitals across India," the plea read.
The score corresponding to the NEET percentile varies each year depending on the number of students to qualify and the seats available. Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) students have to score within the 40th percentile; dominant caste, or open category, students must score within the 50th percentile.
