The Supreme Court directed that the vacant seats in first year BDS course for the year 2020-2021 shall be filled up from the candidates who have participated in the NEET (UG) courses for the year 2020-2021 after lowering the percentile mark by 10 percentile.
Pertinently, Dental Council of India has approached apex court seeking lowering of cut off percentile for admission to BDS courses for year 2020-2021.
The government had argued that the students who had qualified left the BDS seats as they were not willing to pay the high cost of private colleges. They also were more inclined for MBBS.
The bench comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao and Krishna Murari observed that lowering the minimum marks and reducing percentile for admission to the first-year BDS course would not amount to lowering the standards of education.
As per the order, the candidates of General Category who have secured 40 percentile in NEET 2020 would now be eligible for admission to BDS courses. Also, the percentile requirement of candidates belonging to reserved category (SC/ST/OBC) stands revised to 30 percentile while that for Persons with Disability has been revised to 35 percentile.
As many as 7.71 lakh candidates had qualified NEET 2020 examination for 91,367 MBBS seats, 26,949 BDS seats, 52,720 AYUSH seats. Students may please note that this is for the academic year 2020-21 and related to NEET 2020 cut off. Cut off for NEET 2021 is expected to remain the same at 50 percentile mark. The notification for the exam has not been released as yet but is likely soon.
