In a significant intervention, the Bombay High Court has come to the aid of a Pune-based student who lost her chance in the NEET-UG 2025 admissions due to a clerical error while filling her college preference form. The court has directed the State Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell to grant her special permission to register for the ongoing Online Stray Vacancy Round II for physiotherapy seats.
Court's Directive Overrules Deadline
A bench comprising Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Ashwin D Bhobe issued the order on Wednesday. The court explicitly instructed the CET Cell to allow the candidate to submit her application and register her for the Online Stray Vacancy Round II, but only if seats remain vacant after the initial process.
The bench further directed that the student be allowed to exercise her choice of college in the preference form. Crucially, the court ordered this registration "notwithstanding that the date for such registration was up to Dec 14, 2025, which is over." The results for this crucial round are scheduled to be declared on December 20.
The Aspirant's Profile and the Costly Error
The student is a high-achiever from a financially constrained background. She secured 95.8% in her SSC (Class X) and 78.5% in her HSC (Class XII) board exams. She also qualified under the General-EWS merit category in the NEET-UG exam held on June 14, 2025.
Her lawyer, Pooja Thorat, explained the predicament to the media. "The student belongs to a minority section and comes from a lower income group. Her father works as a tyre air pressure machine operator at a petrol pump," Thorat said. To support her education, the student worked as a mehendi artist.
Unable to afford professional counselling for the complex admission process, she sought help at an internet cafe to fill her forms. This led to a critical mistake. "Instead of putting the college code 6174, she put the college code 6104," Thorat stated. This error resulted in her being allotted a college with high fees in Satara district. As per the rules in the official information brochure, this erroneous allotment rendered her ineligible to participate in any subsequent admission rounds.
Legal Recourse and a Precedent
After her plea for a chance to participate in later rounds went unanswered by the CET Cell, the student approached the Bombay High Court with a writ petition. The bench, in its ruling, relied on a precedent set by a coordinate bench on October 28, 2024, in a similar case.
Following that order's rationale, the court directed the State CET Cell to permit the student to apply and register for the open stray vacancy round, offering her a final shot at securing a seat in the Bachelor of Physiotherapy (BPTh) degree course.
This judgment highlights the challenges faced by students from economically weaker sections in navigating high-stakes centralized admission processes and the role of judicial intervention in providing equitable relief in cases of genuine hardship.
