Harshit Agarwal & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.
Background
Students who took the NEET 2020 exam for admission to the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course did not meet the minimum qualifying percentile set by Dental Council of India regulations. The Dental Council itself recommended lowering the cut-off percentile (as had been done in previous years), citing roughly 7,000 vacant BDS seats nationwide, but the Union Government declined to act on that recommendation. The students, along with a group of Andhra Pradesh dental colleges, petitioned the Supreme Court directly under Article 32, arguing the Government's refusal was arbitrary.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the Government's decision not to lower the cut-off was legally flawed because it rested on an incorrect and incomplete comparison of available seats to eligible candidates (ignoring that NEET now also covered AYUSH and other courses, which meant the real seat-to-candidate ratio was far tighter than the Government claimed), and because it relied on irrelevant considerations such as the adequacy of dentists already in the country. The Court noted the Government had lowered minimum marks for BDS in the previous year and for super-speciality and AYUSH courses more recently, undercutting its claim that lowering marks would compromise standards. The Government's decision was set aside as illegal and irrational, and the Court directed that vacant BDS seats for 2020-21 be filled by lowering the qualifying percentile by 10 points across categories, with admissions completed by a fixed date, while also noting high private-college fees (not merely the cut-off) were a real deterrent to admissions.
Lesson Learnt
When a government decision has to balance competing considerations under a specific regulatory power, courts will strike it down if the decision-maker relies on an inaccurate factual basis or factors outside the purpose for which that power was granted, even in a technical/educational policy matter where courts usually defer to expert bodies.