Karnataka HC bins student’s plea seeking caste category change after NEET PG results

Bengaluru: The Karnataka high court has held that once a candidate submits their NEET-UG/PG application under a particular category, they cannot seek to change it after the results are declared if they fail to make corrections during the window provided by the National Testing Agency.The court made the observation while dismissing a petition filed by C Anusha, a student from Ballari who had appeared in NEET-PG 2025. The last date for submission of the application was March 7, 2025, and a three-day window from March 9 to March 11, 2025, was provided for corrections in the form. The results were declared on Aug 19, 2025. After the declaration of the results, Anusha filed a petition on Sept 8, seeking a change of category from GM to OBC, citing that she belonged to the Nekar (weavers) community. She even cited a judgment of the HC rendered last year to support her claim.On the other hand, Shanthi Bhushan, deputy solicitor general appearing for the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences and also the Medical Counselling Committee, along with govt advocate Sudev Hegde and NK Ramesh, counsel for KEA, submitted that the petitioner had a three-day window to correct her application form if she was of the opinion that she belonged to the OBC category, and the same was not availed by her. According to them, allowing the prayer sought by the petitioner would affect the entire result of the NEET-PG 2025.A division bench comprising Justices DK Singh and Venkatesh Naik T noted that in the P Lakshmi Gowda case, relied upon by the petitioner, the HC specified that it should not be treated as a precedent. In the Bhanusri case, another one relied upon by the petitioner, the HC noted that the request for a change in category was made prior to the declaration of the results, and hence the decision to change category did not prejudice the case of others."Therefore, both the cases relied on by the counsel for the petitioner are distinguishable on the facts of the present case. We, therefore, find no substance in this writ petition," the division bench observed while stressing that a NEET UG/PG candidate would not be entitled to change his or her category after the declaration of results, after failing to utilise the window period for correcting the category.