NEW DELHI: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court for directions to the Central government to reduce the percentile for admission in Ayurveda courses in view of a large number of vacancies and an order of the top court that had directed for reduction of percentile for Bachelors of Dental Surgery.

The plea adds that the discretion vested with the Central Government, ought to be exercised in such a trying time, in the interest of the students. 

It has been submitted that the admissions in the Ayurveda courses are being made by a common NEET-2021 conducted for the MBBS/BDS/AYUSH Courses. 

The petition has cited an order by the top court that if the percentile is being reduced/considered for reduction for the BDS course, then the percentile may also be reduced for the Ayurveda programme enabling the petitioners to take admissions.

According to the plea, the top court had observed that lowering the minimum marks and reducing the percentile for admission to first year BDS Course would not amount to lowing the standards of Education and directed to lower the percentile mark by 10 percentiles for admission in the first year of BDS Course for the academic year 2020-21 and also considered a large number of vacancies in the said course.

The plea says that after all rounds of counselling for admissions in the Ayurveda course -- 381 seats in the state of Madhya Pradesh, 962 seats in the state of Uttar Pradesh and 338 seats are still vacant in the state of Uttarakhand.

The plea by advocate Shivam Singh and advocate Animesh Kumar also prays for an extension of the last date of admission and also to organize the last round of counselling consequentially to the reduction of percentile.

The plea stresses that the issue of excessive vacant seats in the colleges in spite of the fact that there are students desirous of obtaining admission needs to be considered.