The Supreme Court of India on Tuesday sought responses from the Centre and medical education authorities on a petition challenging the decision of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences to drastically lower the qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET-PG 2025–26.

A Bench comprising Justices P. S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe issued notices to the Union government, NBEMS, the National Medical Commission, and other concerned authorities. The matter has been listed for further hearing on Friday.

The plea has been filed in the backdrop of NBEMS revising the qualifying criteria after more than 18,000 postgraduate medical seats reportedly remained vacant nationwide. Under the revised norms, the qualifying percentile for candidates from reserved categories has been reduced from 40 to zero, permitting candidates with scores as low as minus 40 out of 800 to take part in the third round of counselling for NEET-PG. For the general category, the cut-off has been sharply lowered from the 50th percentile to the 7th percentile.

The petitioners have questioned the legality and rationale of such an across-the-board relaxation, arguing that it undermines merit and compromises academic standards in postgraduate medical education.