Allahabad HC Upholds UP's Bar on NEET Counselling for Seat-Leavers, Cites Rights of Deprived Candidates

A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court dismissed a NEET-UG-2026 candidate's challenge to a UP Government Order barring seat-leavers from the next academic session's counselling process, holding that the constitutional rights of candidates denied seats by lapsing cannot be overlooked.

A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court, comprising Justice Arindam Sinha and Justice Satya Veer Singh, on 18 August 2026 dismissed a writ petition filed by Rohan Yadav, a NEET-UG-2026 candidate, challenging a State Government Order dated 26 June 2024 that debars any candidate who leaves an allotted seat from participating in the counselling process for the next academic session. The petitioner had sought to have the order declared unconstitutional and ultra vires Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution. The bench, writing through Justice Arindam Sinha, declined to interfere, holding that any intervention would come at the cost of the constitutional rights of candidates who had been denied seats when those seats subsequently lapsed.

The Government Order and Its Challenge

The impugned Government Order, dated 26 June 2024, replaced an earlier regime of “seat-leaving bond money or penalty.” Under the previous system, candidates who vacated seats before completing their course were required to pay a monetary bond or penalty. The GO abolished that financial consequence across all undergraduate and postgraduate seats in Government and Private Medical, Dental and University institutions in Uttar Pradesh.

In its place, acting on a recommendation made in a letter dated 19 January 2024 from the Chairman of the Undergraduate Medical Education Board, the State adopted a different deterrent: a candidate who leaves a seat before completing the course is debarred from the admission process of the subsequent academic session. The subject line of the GO expressly stated it was issued keeping in view the mental health of candidates admitted through NEET counselling.

Rohan Yadav had appeared in NEET-UG-2026 and, on the result being published, wished to participate in counselling. He was barred because, in the previous academic year, he had obtained admission at King George Medical University — a Government Medical College — after succeeding in NEET-UG-2025. Having prepared intensively after joining that institution, he achieved better marks in NEET-UG-2026 and sought admission at a more preferred Government Medical College. The GO stood in his way. He challenged it as arbitrary and unconstitutional.

Petitioner's Constitutional Arguments

Counsel for the petitioner, Arun Kumar Gupta and Prashant Gupta, argued that the GO impeded a successful NEET candidate from obtaining his academic qualification and deprived him of his constitutional rights. They relied principally on two High Court decisions that had struck down or read down similar restrictions.

The first was a judgment dated 31 March 2016 of an Orissa High Court Division Bench in Dr. Satyabrata Kanungo v. State of Odisha and others, W.P.(C) No. 6923 of 2015. That bench had held that a clause disqualifying a PG medical candidate who did not join or who left a course — causing a seat to lapse — from selection in the next three academic sessions, was unreasonable and violative of Article 14. The Orissa bench's reasoning, extracted by the Allahabad court, distinguished monetary penalties from forfeiture of the right to pursue higher study, treating the latter as an interference with the constitutional right to life and liberty.

The second was a judgment dated 29 August 2017 of a Bombay High Court Division Bench in Miss Maithilee Tukaram Kadam v. The State of Maharashtra and others, Writ Petition No. 7238 of 2017. That court had read down clause 10.10.1 of Maharashtra's Information Brochure for NEET-UG-2017, which barred a candidate who vacated or abandoned an allotted seat from eligibility for the next two years. The Bombay bench found the clause an unreasonable restriction on fundamental rights under Articles 19(1)(g) and 21, in light of the eligibility criteria for NEET-UG-2017 applicable to the petitioner before it.

Petitioner's counsel also relied on the Supreme Court's judgment reported in AIR 1983 SC 130, D.S. Nakara and others v. Union of India, for the proposition that Article 14 forbids class legislation and requires that any classification rest on an intelligible differentia with a rational nexus to the object sought to be achieved.

How the Bench Distinguished the Relied-Upon Precedents

The Division Bench gave close attention to the two relied-upon High Court views but declined to follow them, expressing “respectful disagreement” in the specific context of this case.

The court first examined the status of Dr. Satyabrata Kanungo. A special leave petition filed by the State of Odisha, SLP(C) No. 7458 of 2017, had been dismissed on 11 September 2023. However, the Supreme Court's dismissal order expressly stated that the question of law urged was kept open, and it referred to its earlier directions in Dar-Us-Slam Educational Trust and Ors. v. Medical Council of India and Ors., W.P.(C) No. 267 of 2017, order dated 9 May 2017. The bench read this as a signal that the question was not concluded in favour of the view taken by the Orissa court.

The bench then traced what the Supreme Court had done in Dar-Us-Slam Educational Trust. That order had laid down detailed guidelines for admission, including a key directive that after the second round of counselling, students who had already taken admission would not be allowed to vacate their seats — precisely to prevent seat blocking and ensure maximum seat-filling. A later Supreme Court judgment dated 29 April 2025 in SLP(Civil) No. 9298 of 2018, State of U.P. and another v. Miss Bhavna Tiwari and others, interpreted Dar-Us-Slam Educational Trust in that way and laid down further guidelines on counselling and seat blocking.

As for Miss Maithilee Tukaram Kadam, the bench noted that the Bombay court had itself considered Maharashtra's justification in detail. That affidavit described three scenarios of national wastage: a BAMS student getting an MBBS seat and abandoning the BAMS seat; a BDS student doing the same; and a private college student moving to a Government college and wasting a private seat. The Bombay bench's reasoning had turned substantially on the fact that, at that time, a candidate could appear for NEET a maximum of three times, and upper age limits applied. The Allahabad bench observed that such limits have since been removed, meaning the rationale that limited attempts did not militate against the restriction no longer applied in the same way.

Against both precedents, the Allahabad bench placed a consideration neither court appears to have foregrounded: the constitutional rights of the candidate who was denied a seat in the first place because a more meritorious candidate took it, and who would be further prejudiced if that seat were then vacated and lapsed. The bench framed this directly: if the petitioner's challenge succeeded, an aspiring medical student who had earlier been denied that seat would have had a violation of his or her own constitutional rights when the seat was rendered vacated and lapsed.

The Unseen Candidate and Article 14 Fairness

The bench's reasoning placed Article 14's guarantee of fairness in a wider frame. The GO's stated purpose — mental health of candidates admitted through NEET counselling — necessarily extended, the court held, to those candidates who took the examination, did not find allotment, and were denied seats by others who scored higher in the open category. The bench noted that a candidate who does not qualify in a competitive examination cannot be seen to have put in any less effort.

On the petitioner's specific situation, the bench observed that he could have waited out the academic year at King George Medical University and attempted NEET-UG-2026 thereafter, thereby securing a preferred college without vacating his current seat. Instead, he took admission and now sought to vacate the seat, leaving it to lapse. The court held that the Government had issued the GO after ascertaining the present situation of the mental health of candidates taking the competitive examination, and that the deterrent against lapsing was a rational response to a consistent problem.

The bench was also unpersuaded that the bar on counselling participation was irrational under the D.S. Nakara twin-test framework. It found, without extended elaboration, no reason to interfere with the Government's policy choice.

Outcome

The Division Bench dismissed the writ petition on 18 August 2026 with no order as to costs. The Government Order dated 26 June 2024, which replaced monetary seat-leaving bonds with a debarment from the next session's admission process, remains operative.