Bombay HC Dismisses MBBS Student's Plea for Fourth Anatomy Attempt, Reads Regulation 21 of 2023 NMC Rules as a Whole-Year Limit

The Bombay High Court held that the four-attempt cap under Regulation 21 of the Graduate Medical Education Regulations 2023 applies to the entire First Professional MBBS year, not individual subjects, and dismissed a student's plea to sit a fourth time in Anatomy alone.

A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Justice R. I. Chagla and Justice Firdosh P. Pooniwalla, dismissed a writ petition filed by Aarya Avinash Patil, a First Year MBBS student at Vedantaa Institute of Medical Sciences, who sought permission to appear for a fourth attempt in the Anatomy theory and practical examination conducted by Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS). The judgment, pronounced on 31 August 2026, turns on the interpretation of Regulation 21 of the Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, framed by the National Medical Commission. The bench held that the four-attempt ceiling in that regulation covers the entire First Professional MBBS year as a unit, and is not confined to subject-wise attempts. Since the petitioner had already sat for four first-year attempts, no further opportunity could be granted.

The Dispute Before the Court

Aarya Patil was admitted to the First Year MBBS course at Vedantaa Institute of Medical Sciences in August 2023 after qualifying NEET-UG-2023. Respondent No. 3 College conducted internal assessments, and she passed all subjects except Anatomy, in which she fell two marks short. Under the guidelines of the Undergraduate Medical Education Board, a candidate must pass internal assessments to become eligible for the corresponding University theory and practical examination. Because she had not cleared Anatomy internally, she could not appear in that paper when she sat for the University examinations in August 2024. She appeared in all other subjects — Physiology and Biochemistry — at that sitting.

Results declared in September 2024 showed she had failed in all subjects attempted. She then appeared for the supplementary examination in October 2024, sitting in Anatomy theory and practical for the first time after admission. She failed by four marks in Anatomy theory but passed Physiology and Biochemistry, leaving Anatomy as the sole barrier to promotion to Second Year MBBS.

A second attempt in Anatomy followed in September 2025. She passed the practical examination (53 out of 100) but failed the theory. A third attempt in December 2025 again saw her pass the practical and fail the theory by ten marks.

When she approached the college to fill the examination form for the August 2026 sitting, the college declined. It supplied her a copy of a MUHS circular dated 11 July 2024 and informed her that, having spent four years from the date of admission, she could not be allowed another attempt. Petitioner's counsel pointed out that she had appeared in Anatomy only three times. She wrote to the college on 1 March 2026 requesting a fourth Anatomy attempt; that letter went unanswered. The writ petition followed.

The Legal Issue: Does the Four-Attempt Cap Run Subject-Wise or Year-Wise?

The petitioner's case rested entirely on a textual difference between the superseded Regulations on Graduate Medical Education 1997 (as amended in 2019) and the Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023.

Regulation 11.2.7(2) of the 1997 Regulations provided that a maximum of four attempts would be available to clear the First Professional University examination and that the first professional course would have to be cleared within four years of admission. Critically, it also stated: “Partial attendance at any University examination shall be counted as an availed attempt.”

Regulation 21 of the 2023 Regulations dropped that sentence. Its proviso reads that under no circumstances shall the student be allowed more than four attempts for the first year (First Professional MBBS), and no student shall be allowed to continue the undergraduate medical course after nine years from the date of admission.

Ms. Pooja Thorat, appearing for the petitioner, argued that the deletion of the “partial attendance” language was deliberate and consequential. She submitted that the August 2024 sitting, where Patil was ineligible to appear in Anatomy and sat only in Physiology and Biochemistry, should not count as an Anatomy attempt. On that reading, Patil had appeared in Anatomy only three times (October 2024, September 2025, December 2025) and was entitled to a fourth.

Counsel for MUHS (Respondent No. 1), the National Medical Commission (Respondent No. 2), and Vedantaa Institute (Respondent No. 3) took the contrary position. They argued that the omission of the partial-attendance sentence from the 2023 Regulations did not alter the plain words of Regulation 21, which cap attempts for the first year as a whole. The petitioner had sat for four first-year MBBS examinations. The cap was reached.

How the Bench Reasoned

Justice Pooniwalla, writing for the bench, placed the two regulatory texts side by side. The analysis began with what Regulation 21 of the 2023 Regulations actually said.

The bench read the proviso as imposing a limit on attempts “for the first year (First Professional MBBS)” as a unit, not a limit keyed to individual subjects. The regulation, the bench observed, “does not restrict the limit to attempts made in different subjects as is submitted by the Petitioner.” Once a student sits for the first-year examinations, that sitting counts as one of the four permissible attempts, regardless of which subjects were attempted in it.

On the deletion of the partial-attendance clause, the bench was equally clear. The words used in Regulation 21 are, in the court's terms, “totally clear and refer to four attempts for the first year, irrespective of the subjects that are attempted in any of these attempts.” The omission of the old partial-attendance language does not change that position because the new regulation does not predicate the count on which subjects were sat in any given attempt.

Applying that construction to Patil's own history: she appeared in Physiology and Biochemistry in August 2024 (Attempt 1); in Anatomy in October 2024 (Attempt 2); in Anatomy in September 2025 (Attempt 3); and in Anatomy in December 2025 (Attempt 4). Four attempts had been made. Regulation 21 permitted no more.

The bench expressly declined to rule on the Competency Based Medical Education Curriculum (CBME) Guidelines published by the Undergraduate Medical Education Board, having found the case fully resolved by Regulation 21 itself.

Distinguishing Rajkumarsingh v. Amravati University

Ms. Thorat had relied on a 1996 Bombay High Court judgment, Rajkumarsingh S/o Dr. K.B. Singh v. Amravati University, Amravati and Another, reported at 1996 (2) Mh.L.J. 627. In that case, the student was detained for want of attendance and could not even apply for admission to the examination in Winter 1992. This Court had held that a student who was prevented from presenting himself — through circumstances entirely beyond his control, including a pending writ and a stay — could not be treated as having “failed to present himself” at those examinations. Several examination windows that the student could not access were therefore excluded from the count.

The bench distinguished the precedent squarely on facts. In Rajkumarsingh, the student could not appear because he was detained for want of attendance; no admission card was issued; unforeseen and judicially acknowledged circumstances lay behind his non-appearance. The examinations he could not attend were accordingly not counted against him.

In Patil's case, by contrast, she did appear for the August 2024 first-year MBBS examination. She sat in Physiology and Biochemistry. That she could not sit in Anatomy at that particular attempt — because she had not cleared the internal assessment in that subject — did not mean she had not appeared for the first-year examination at all. She had. That attempt counted. Rajkumarsingh, the bench held, “does not come to the aid of the Petitioner.”

Outcome

The Division Bench dismissed Writ Petition No. 7366 of 2026. There was no order as to costs.