Rajasthan State On Its Own Acted In Haste: Supreme Court Regularizes Admissions Of BDS Students Under Relaxed NEET Criteria

The Supreme Court has regularized the admissions of Rajasthan students in Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course under the relaxed National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) criteria.

The Court was deciding a batch of Civil Appeals concerning the legality of BDS course admissions granted in the State of Rajasthan for the academic year 2016-17 after lowering of the minimum percentile as prescribed for NEET UG examinations.

The two-Judge Bench of Justice J.K. Maheshwari and Justice Vijay Bishnoi observed, “… the State of Rajasthan on its own acted in haste and interpreted the action of the Central Government of forwarding the representation of the Federation with suggestion to take “necessary action as deemed fit” as delegation of power, whereas the Central Government under the Act or the 2007 Regulations cannot delegate its power to any other authority. Further, the State of Rajasthan, having already granted the relaxations, continued to seek post-facto approval from the Central Government for the reductions of 10 percentile and 5 percentile, and informed the colleges of the positions taken by the Central Government and the DCI only belatedly. The DCI is also at fault to some extent, as it first recommended a relaxation of 10 percentile and thereafter reversed its position by recommending the cancellation of all admissions below the minimum percentile.”

The Bench said that the only victims are the students who obtained admissions despite not securing the minimum prescribed percentile, possibly on the assurance extended by the colleges as well as under the belief that, once the percentile had been lowered by the State of Rajasthan and also recommended by the Dental Council of India (DCI), their admissions would stand regularised.

AOR Vipin Gupta represented the Appellants, while Senior Advocate Pallav Shishodia and AAG Sansriti Pathak represented the Respondents.

Case Background

The Appeals before the Apex Court were preferred against the Judgment passed by the Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur Bench, which had dismissed a batch of Writ Appeals filed by the Appellants-students against the Judgment of the Single Judge, whereby Petitions were partly allowed and it was ordered that the admissions granted by applying the relaxation to the extent of 10 percentile and 5 percentile stood regularized and the students who had been admitted beyond the said relaxation stood discharged.

Court’s Observations

The Supreme Court in the above context of the case, noted, “Although it has been contended by the colleges and the DCI that students were well-aware and informed while being admitted to the BDS course that their admissions were irregular, we did not find any materials on record that substantiate such a claim. … What has transpired in the facts before us is egregious and cannot be condoned in any circumstances whatsoever.”

The Court added that the State of Rajasthan as well as the private colleges have not followed the law and there were also some lapses on the part of the DCI as well as the Central Government.

“When the Federation on 23.09.2016 made a request to the Central Government for lowering the percentile in view of a large number of unfilled seats in the BDS course, the Central Government was not supposed to forward the said representation to the State of Rajasthan for taking “necessary action as deemed fit”. Instead, the Central Government could have asked the State of Rajasthan to verify about the position of vacant seats and thereafter, taken a decision regarding any reduction in the percentile, in consultation with the DCI”, it remarked.

The Court took note of the fact that during the pendency of the proceedings, many of the students have pursued the BDS course pursuant to the interim Orders passed by the Single Judge as well as the Division Bench of the High Court, and completed the said course, and even been granted their degrees.

“Though the exact number of candidates is not available, it has been urged that many of these candidates are presently practicing as dentists or pursuing postgraduate studies, and some have already completed their postgraduate courses. Additionally, it cannot be overlooked that the students were charged hefty fees by the colleges for pursuing the BDS course and have further spent a considerable amount of time and money in the present litigation”, it said.

The Court invoked Article 142 of the Constitution of India and held that the admissions of the Appellant/students who have passed the BDS course and received their degrees stand regularised.

“Nonetheless, all Appellant/ students who are being benefitted by these directions shall file an affidavit with the Registrar (Judicial), Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, within a period of eight weeks from the date of pronouncement of this judgment, giving an unconditional undertaking that whenever they are required to render their pro-bono services to the State of Rajasthan during their entire lifetime in exceptional circumstances involving natural calamities, man-made disasters/accidents, health emergencies comprising epidemics, pandemics, disease outbreaks or public health crises declared by competent authorities, or any other situation of similar gravity that threatens public health, safety or welfare as notified by the State of Rajasthan, they shall do so without charging any remuneration for a maximum cumulative period of 2 years”, it directed.

The Court further directed that the Registrar (Judicial), Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, shall forward those affidavits to the concerned authority of the State of Rajasthan for their record.

“… if any Appellant/student fails to file the aforesaid affidavit within the stipulated time, the Registrar (Judicial), Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, shall intimate this Court through proper channel and the Registry of the Supreme Court shall place the said information before this Court for further directions”, it clarified.

The Court also observed that as far as other students, who have still not cleared the BDS course or whose degrees have not been issued yet, are concerned, they are not entitled to any relief by the Court, having regard to the 2007 Regulations, which explicitly provide that any student who fails to complete the BDS course within a period of 9 years from the date of their admission shall be discharged from the course.

“Thus, the students before us, who were admitted in the Academic Year 2016-17, and have still not cleared the BDS course, cannot be conferred any relief from this Court, as was rightly pointed out by the learned Counsel for the DCI. … As a matter of caution, we must state that this direction is issued only to save the efforts, time and resources of the students that have gone into achieving their BDS degrees and shall not be treated as a precedent”, it added.

Conclusion

Furthermore, the Court expressed its displeasure at the manner in which the standards of medical education have been undermined in this case.

“The colleges committed blatant illegality and willful violation of the 2007 Regulations while admitting students beyond 10+5 percentile, thus warranting strict punitive action. Further, the State of Rajasthan also acted without any authority of law while granting relaxations and failed to timely inform the colleges of the decisions of the Central Government and the DCI”, it held.

The Court, therefore, directed the Colleges to deposit a cost of Rs. 10 crores each and the State to deposit a sum of Rs. 10 lakhs with the Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority within a period of eight weeks.

“It is made clear that the Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority shall invest the said fund in a short-term fixed deposit account, in a Nationalized Bank, with auto-renewal facility. … The Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority shall utilize the amount of interest accrued on the said fixed-term deposit for the maintenance, upgradation and improvement of One Stop Centres, Nari Niketans, Old Age Homes as well as Child Care Institutions established by the State of Rajasthan within the state. The said interest amount can also be utilised for setting up of new infrastructure for the said social welfare institutions. However, we direct the utilisation of the said amount only with the advice of a committee of the judges of the Rajasthan High Court to be constituted for the said purpose. In furtherance of the said objective, we request the Hon’ble Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court to constitute a Committee comprising five judges of the High Court, including at least one woman judge, in order to ensure the effective utilization of the interest amount accrued on the fixed deposit, for the purposes outlined hereinabove”, it concluded.

Accordingly, the Apex Court disposed of the Appeals and issued necessary directions.

Cause Title- Siddhant Mahajan and Ors. v. The State of Rajasthan and Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 1458)

Appearance:

Appellants: AORs Vipin Gupta, Maibam Nabaghanashyam Singh, Deepak Goel, Ankit Roy, K. Paari Vendhan, Prateek Bhatia, Siddharth Praveen Acharya, Advocates Manish Agrawal, Namrata Sharma, Nandani Gupta, Krishna Kumar, Rehana Begam, Kumar Kartikey, Neelu Sharma, A A Bhashali, Anirudh Kumar, E Vinay Kumar, A A Banshali, Alka Goyal, Harshita Maheshwari, Archana Preeti Gupta, Urvashi Sharma, Prabhas Bajaj, Rishabh Sancheti, Padma Priya, Dhawal Mohan, Alankrita Sinha, Abhimanyu Kaul, Aditya Bhati, Lakshay Sharma, Bhuvnesh Vyas, and Rahul Kanoj.

Respondents: Senior Advocate Pallav Shishodia, AAG Sansriti Pathak, AORs Ghanshyam Joshi, Nidhi Jaswal, Anand Shankar, Prateek Bhatia, Siddharth Praveen Acharya, Charu Mathur, Manish Raghav, Advocates Manan Shishodia, Chirag Joshi, Shagufa Khan, Aman Prasad, Dhawal Mohan, Alankrita Sinha, Manish Raghav, Jagdish Solanki, Himanshu Singh Dhillon, Sumit Saddi, Kartik Hooda, Surbhi Singh, Prakash Srivastava, and Rajan Thakur.

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