NEET aspirant ‘mistakenly’ clicks ‘no’ for minority quota, gets Madras High Court relief

Justice L. Victoria Gowri granted relief to the petitioner.

Student’s plea

According to the plea, the student sought admission to MBBS/BDS courses under the management quota. The petitioner submitted that although she belonged to the Christian community and possessed a religious and linguistic minority certificate, she had inadvertently marked “No” instead of “Yes” in the application column asking whether she wished to apply under the Religious Minority category.

According to the petition, the mistake was bona fide and unintentional. After discovering the error, the student submitted a representation on August 7, 2026, requesting that the authorities reopen the portal and allow her to upload the minority certificate so that she could be considered under the Christian Minority category.

After her representation was not considered she moved the high court. The counsel for the petitioner relied upon an order of the high court wherein it had granted relief to a student who sought to upload his Telugu Linguistic Minority Certificate.

The additional government pleader opposed the plea, stating that the application process had already closed and that candidates had been given sufficient time to upload documents. The authorities argued that the last date for applications had initially been fixed as June 26, 2026, and was later extended to July 27, 2026. They further submitted that counselling was scheduled to commence on August 13 and permitting the petitioner to alter her application at that stage would disrupt the process.

The respondents also relied on the admission prospectus, which required candidates claiming religious or linguistic minority status to upload the relevant documents along with the application and stated that subsequent claims would be rejected.

The court noted that the petitioner was seeking admission for medical course only under the religious and linguistic minority category in the management quota and found no material to indicate that permitting her to upload the certificate would adversely affect any other candidate in the merit list.

“The perusal of the materials placed before me would make it clear that the petitioner before this Court is seeking admission for Medical Course only under the religious and linguistic minority, to try her luck only under the management quota,” it observed.

Granting the relief, the court directed the authorities to allow the student to upload her Christian Religious Minority Certificate and to permit her to take part in the MBBS 2026-2027 selection process.