SC lowers NEET 2020 cut-off marks by 10 percentile for dental surgery course for year 2020-21

The Apex Court noted that there are about 7,000 seats available for admission to the first-year BDS course during the current academic year for which the examinations were held on September 13, 2020.

The Supreme Court has set aside the Central Government order to not lower the minimum marks for admission to the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course for 2020-2021 saying "it suffers from the vices of illegality and irrationality". The Apex Court directed the Centre that the first year BDS seats that are lying for the academic year 2020-21 should be filled by the candidates who had participated in the NEET-UG courses for the current year, after lowering the minimum marks by 10 percentile. 
It noted that there are about 7,000 seats available for admission to the first-year BDS course during the current academic year for which the NEET exam was held on September 13, 2020.
A bench of Justices L N Rao and Krishna Murari held that the candidates belonging to the general category who have secured 40 percentile shall be eligible to be considered for admission in the first year BDS course for 2020-2021.

"We set aside the decision of the First Respondent dated December 30, 2020, to not reduce the minimum marks for admission to BDS course as it suffers from the vices of illegality and irrationality," it said.
The bench said the students belonging to the SC/ST/OBC categories shall be declared qualified if they have secured the 30 percentile.
"In so far as General candidates with benchmark disabilities specified under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, they would be eligible if they have secured 35 percentile," it said, adding that the admissions shall be made strictly in accordance with merit and the admission process shall be completed by February 18, 2021.
It said that any other student who has qualified in NEET(UG)-2020 examination even without lowering the minimum marks and is willing to participate in the admission process shall also be considered for admission to the BDS course.
It said, "Judicial review of administrative action is permissible on grounds of illegality, irrationality and procedural impropriety. An administrative decision is flawed if it is illegal. A decision is illegal if it pursues an objective other than that for which the power to make the decision was conferred".
The Supreme court said that there is no "unfettered discretion in public law" and discretion conferred on authority has to be necessarily exercised only for the purpose provided in a Statute.

The discretion exercised by the decision-maker is subject to judicial scrutiny if a purpose other than a specified purpose is pursued. If the authority pursues unauthorized purposes his decision is rendered illegal. If irrelevant considerations are taken into account for reaching the decision or relevant considerations have been ignored, the decision stands vitiated as the decision-maker has misdirected himself in law," it held.
It said that the decision of the Centre was propelled by "extraneous considerations" like a sufficient number of Dentists being available in the country, which is one of the reasons for which students were not inclined to get admitted to BDS course.
"Consideration of factors other than the availability of eligible students would be the result of being influenced by irrelevant or extraneous matters. There is an implicit obligation on the decision-maker to apply his mind to pertinent and proximate matters only, eschewing the irrelevant and the remote", it said.
The bench rejected the submission of the Centre that there are sufficient numbers of Dentists in the country and, therefore, there is no harm in the seats being unfilled.
The bench noted that the total number of seats available for the academic year 2020-2021 for MBBS are 91,367, BDS are 26,949 and AYUSH are 52,720 making it a total of 1,71,036 seats.
"Whereas, the NEET qualified candidates are 7,71,500. The ratio of seats available vis-Ã -vis eligible students is 1:4.5 and not 7. The basis for the decision to not reduce minimum marks that there are sufficient eligible candidates is without considering these vital facts. The decision which materially suffers from the blemish of overlooking or ignoring, wilfully or otherwise, vital facts bearing on the decision is bad in law," it said.

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