NEET: SC hearing on INR 8 lakhs annual income criteria for EWS in July 2022

Supreme Court of India scheduled the hearing of the petitions challenging the validity of the criteria of INR 8 lakhs annual income limit for determining the EWS category for NEET admissions in July 2022.

NEET EWS: The top court of India has scheduled the hearing of the petitions challenging the validity of the criteria of INR 8 Lakhs annual income limit as the upper limit for seeking Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) reservation in the All India Quota (AIQ) in July 2022.

Justice DY Chandrachud has listed the hearing for July 2022, as reported by Live Law.

NEET EWS: Supreme Court's proceedings today

Senior Advocate Arvind Datar for the petitioners said, "2nd exams batch are being held. May I request 1 thing, now the only short point is whether 8 lakhs is applicable or not."

"What they've done is they have lifted 8 lakhs from creamy layer and adopted it here. We have shown that there is huge disparity in the per capita income. If your lordships is sitting next week also, can we hear it next week? Counselling will start in August so request to be heard before that. ," he said.

Justice DY Chandrachud responded, "It’ll have to be heard in a combination of 3. We’ll keep it on the reopening. We’ll keep it in July. we’ll give a date immediately."

Background of NEET EWS case for NEET admissions

Last year, after justifying the INR 8 lakh annual income limit for determining the EWS category for NEET counselling, the Centre revisited its decision. The court hearings also affected the NEET PG 2021 counselling by delaying the counselling process

The top court had said that whatever it will decide will be applicable for the NEET PG 2022-23 admissions. In March 2022, the Supreme court posted for final disposal the petitions challenging the applicability of EWS criteria of INR 8 lakh in NEET-PG 2022-23. The petitioners' advocate had requested the court for an early hearing as the NEET PG 2022 is in May 2022.

Read more:

• Centre to revisit INR 8 lakh criteria for determining EWS for NEET Counselling 2021
• Supreme Court's final decision on EWS criteria will apply to NEET PG 2022
• NEET PG EWS Quota: Supreme Court schedules final hearing in April
• NEET Counselling 2021: SC allows EWS, OBC Reservation in All India Quota; paves way for Counselling