NEET aspirant argues his case in SC, secures MBBS admission

NEET aspirant argues his case in SC, secures MBBS admission 

Siddarth Pandey  17.02.2026

Jabalpur : “I didn’t argue emotionally — I simply placed the law as it is,” said Atharva Chaturvedi, a 19-year-old NEET aspirant about the moment he stood before the Supreme Court with the Constitution and past judgments to support his case. 

Atharva cleared NEET 2024 - 25 with 530 marks out of 720 as an Economically Weaker Section (EWS) candidate. But he was left out of the admission process because a clear EWS reservation policy was absent in the private medical colleges of Madhya Pradesh.

He chose to fight the case himself without engaging a senior advocate. Atharva said he argued his own case before the MP high court and the Supreme Court and secured relief after he was denied MBBS admission under the EWS quota in MP’s private medical colleges. 

Before the high court, he cited the 103rd Constitutional Amendment and said Articles 15(6) and 16(6) mandated 10% EWS reservation in private, non-minority educational institutions. The court directed the state to complete the process of increasing seats and implementing EWS reservation in private medical colleges within a year. 

However, the policy remained unimplemented in the following admission cycle. Despite securing an EWS rank of 164 in NEET 2025-26, he again did not get admission and moved SC through an online petition. 

On Feb 10, as a bench headed by CJI Surya Kant was rising for the day, Atharva sought 10 minutes to present his case, and the bench agreed. Invoking its powers under Article 142, the SC observed that the petitioner was denied admission due to circumstances beyond his control and that state authorities failed to comply with earlier judicial directions. The court directed the National Medical Commission and the MP govt to ensure his admission to an MBBS course in a private medical college.