New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the Centre's reply on a plea preferred by NEET-UG aspirants challenging the Centre's decision refusing to lower the percentile for qualification of NEET-BDS courses for the academic session 2021-22. A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Sanjiv Khanna, and Surya Kant issued notice to the Centre and sought its reply on specific points like the total number of eligible candidates after deducting the admission granted for MBBS courses and BDS courses, the total number of vacant seats in All India Quota and State Quota and the total number of seats available in government colleges and private and deemed colleges.
The bench also sought to know the reasons from the Centre for not allowing it to lower the percentile in wake of available seats in government and private/deemed colleges. At the outset, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, submitted a note to the bench and said that after the preparation of the note, the results have been declared for all stray vacancies and 111 seats in government colleges have been allotted. She said that the figures given in the chart are not accurate as they have received the updated figures just before the hearing of the plea and it says that out of 20,000 seats only around 9000 seats have been filled up.
The bench said that even the Dental Council of India in its letter dated April 6, has acknowledged the vacancies and said that out of 20,000 seats only around 9000 seats have been filled. Bhati said that they will file a comprehensive affidavit giving the exact number of figures about the number of students who applied and the seats which have been filled in government and private/deemed colleges. The bench said that even in 2019-20 and 2020-21 there were vacant seats even after the lowering of percentiles and there must be some reason why this is happening.