HC refuses relief to student who failed to act on circular

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has refused the plea of a student who scored 178 points in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)-PG exam in the open category but had failed to fill up the online application form for admission to the PG Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course as she was unaware about the time and was not informed about the same by the authorities through SMS. The court accepted the state’s version that the student could not expect the authorities to send SMS to all students and refused to grant any interim benefits.

A bench headed by justice S.J. Kathawalla was hearing a civil writ petition filed by Sharayu Chavan who was aspiring to pursue a master’s degree in dental surgery after completing the requisite bond service of two years after passing in 2016. The petitioner had claimed that after she appeared for the NEET BDS exam held in January 2018 and secured 178 points but was not eligible for a seat as the cut-off was 233.

She further submitted that after the admissions were completed, the cut-off was revised to 149 in March making her eligible for admission to the MDS course. However, as she was unwell and had not received a message from the admission authority, she was not able to submit her application and hence approached the court praying for directions to the authorities to consider her application.

After hearing all contentions, the Bombay high court accepted the submissions of the authorities and said that there was no need for granting urgent ad-interim reliefs and posted the matter for hearing on June 18.