SC asks Delhi police commissioner to ensure presence of lawyer for making 'scandalous' remarks
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court directed the Delhi police commissioner on Friday to ensure the appearance of lawyer Mukut Nath Verma, who has allegedly made "scandalous and frivolous" allegations against apex court judges and the members of the election committee set up for conducting the SCBA polls.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was apprised by Supreme Court Bar Association President and senior advocate Vikas Singh and senior lawyer Vijay Hansaria, who also heads the SCBA election panel, that the Delhi Police was unable to trace and execute the bailable warrants issued against the lawyer earlier.
The court, which was hearing a 2023 plea of the SCBA on reforms in the association, had earlier taken a strong note of "a scandalous and frivolous complaint made by one Dr Mukut Nath Verma, Advocate, to the Tilak Marg police station against members of the Election Committee constituted by this court for conducting SCBA elections".
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The bench had directed the lawyer to remain present in court on May 29, 2025, and said if he failed to appear, coercive steps would be taken to secure his presence.
On May 29 last year, Varma appeared before the court online, but the court insisted on his physical presence.
Later, bailable warrants were issued against Varma but those were returned with a finding that police could not trace him.
Now, the court has directed the police commissioner to ensure Varma's presence before it on February 23 by using "lawful coercive measures".
In the meanwhile, the court asked SCBA secretary Pragya Baghel to collate the suggestions of the bar body, retired apex court judge L N Rao and Hansaria in a tabular form for passing necessary directions.
Hansaria suggested that the tenure of the elected representative of the SCBA should be two years as against the existing one year, on the lines of the Supreme Court Advocate-on-Records Association (SCAoRA).
The SCBA president suggested that the physical appearances of lawyers before apex court benches be given primacy for enabling them to be voters of the apex bar body and weed out fake ones.
He referred to an instance where a person, running a marriage bureau, was registered as an SCBA member, eligible to vote in its elections.
The bench said it will pass directions after taking note of the collated suggestions on the next date of hearing.
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SC directs medical exam board to explain decision to reduce qualifying cut-off for NEET-PG
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Friday directed the National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) to explain its decision to drastically reduce the qualifying cut-off percentiles for NEET-PG 2025-26.
A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe directed NBEMS to file an affidavit and posted the matter for hearing after two weeks.
"On one hand, we have to see that seats should not get wasted. At the same time, there is pressure that candidates are not coming, so please reduce the cutoff.
"Then the argument will be that the standards are being lowered and the counter-argument is that seats are going waste. So, somewhere there has to be a balance," the bench observed while asking NBEMS to file an affidavit.
During the hearing, senior advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that marks cannot be relaxed in PG admissions, except for exceptional reasons.
He said standards need to be stricter at the postgraduate level.
The top court on February 4 had issued notices to the Union of India, the NBEMS, the National Medical Commission and others.
With over 18,000 postgraduate medical seats across the country remaining vacant, the Board revised the qualifying percentiles for NEET-PG 2025 admissions, reducing it to zero from 40 percentile for reserved categories -- which will make even those scoring as low as minus 40 out of 800 to take part in the third round of counselling for PG medical seats.
According to the notice published by NBEMS, the NEET PG cutoff for the general category has been reduced to seven percentile from 50.
The top court was hearing a plea filed by social worker Harisharan Devgan, Dr Saurav Kumar, Dr Lakshya Mittal and Dr Akash Soni submitting that the cut-off reduction violates Article 14 and Article 21.
The plea contended that the eligibility criteria cannot be altered after commencement of the selection process as aspirants prepared, competed and made career choices based on the originally notified cut-offs.
The petition said PG medical education cannot be treated as a commercial exercise and that regulatory authorities are required to prevent dilution of standards.
Several sections of the medical community have termed as "unprecedented and illogical" the NBEMS' decision to drastically reduce the cut-off percentile for candidates across all categories for NEET-PG 2025-26.
