New Delhi, Sept. 18 -- The Supreme Court on Thursday approved the Centre's decision to reduce the qualifying marks for admission to National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test super-speciality (NEET-SS) courses from 50th to 30th percentile to fill around 1,800 vacant seats across the country. A bench of justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe passed the order after the government submitted the decision was taken following the court's suggestion to reduce the admission percentile to ensure seats do not go waste in the NEET-SS 2025 counselling, with two rounds already completed and a stray vacancy round proposed to be held by the Directorate General Health Services. On a reconsideration, the Centre has decided to reduce the percentile "to ensure that the available Super Speciality seats do not remain vacant and that the available training capacity is optimally utilised," additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, told the court. "Such reduction would make approximately 6,000 additional candidates eligible for participation. This would provide a candidate pool of approximately three times the number of presently vacant seats of 1,857," Bhati said. NEET-SS is a national-level entrance exam for doctors who want to enter advanced medical super-speciality programmes, such as Doctorate of Medicine (DM), Master of Chirurgiae (MCh), and Diplomate of National Board (DrNB). The exam was held in December 2025 and results were declared a month later. However, 1,857 seats remained unfilled after two rounds of counselling. The vacant seats will be offered only to those eligible candidates who have not availed a seat in the previous counsellings, Bhati said. The court also approved the Centre's decision to revert 40 SS seats to in-service doctors in Tamil Nadu serving in rural areas....