MBBS Eligibility Needs Biology in Both Classes 11 and 12, Not Class 12 Alone: Rajasthan High Court

The appellant scored 637 marks in NEET UG 2021 with All India Rank 6610. He was allotted Government Medical College, Pali in the first round of counselling and, on upgradation in the second round, Government Medical College, Kota, where he deposited the fee (para 2). The Principal did not let him join because he had studied Biology only in Class 12, while the information booklet required two years of study (para 3). In Class 11 he had studied Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Hindi; in Class 12 Biology was an optional subject (para 3). A Single Judge dismissed his writ petition on 18.05.2022 (paras 1, 5).

The criteria, based on the Graduate Medical Education Regulations as amended in 2018, require that the last two years of the 12-year study comprise Physics, Chemistry and Biology/Biotechnology (paras 11-12, 14). Tanishq Gangwar struck down the bar on candidates who studied Biology as an additional subject; whether two years of Biology could be dispensed with was neither raised nor decided there (paras 14-15). As only the ratio decidendi binds, and a decision is no authority for what is read into it by implication, as restated in Secunderabad Club (para 16), reliance on it was misconceived (para 17). Deependra Sharma was disposed of on the respondents' concession and did not decide the issue (para 19). Sourabh Kumar Jeengar dealt only with Biology as an additional subject, and the Supreme Court's disposal of the SLP against it did not affirm a one-year rule (paras 20-21). Judicial intervention only allowed Biology as an additional subject; two years of Biology remains essential, and accepting one year would do "complete violence" to the mandatory criterion (paras 23-24). Kaloji Narayana Rao's finding of a compelling logic in requiring Biology for all the relevant years is its ratio and is not confined to equivalence (paras 25-26).