Allahabad HC Wants MBBS Admission Data From 4 UP Colleges — What the Quota Case Means for NEET Students

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has asked the Uttar Pradesh government to spell out exactly how many reserved-category students got MBBS seats in four government medical colleges this year, both before and after September 16. The direction, issued in this week’s hearings, adds pressure in a quota dispute every NEET-UG 2026 candidate should track.

The bench of Justices Rajan Roy and Manjive Shukla is hearing a special appeal on reservation in medical admissions at the government medical colleges in Ambedkar Nagar, Kannauj, Saharanpur and Jalaun. On Tuesday it directed the state to disclose the number of reserved-category candidates admitted to the MBBS course in these colleges until September 16, 2026, and the number admitted after that date.

The court was informed during the hearing that no reserved-category candidate had been admitted in excess of the prescribed reservation percentage after the interim order of September 16. The bench retained the records produced by the medical education and social welfare departments. It also told three senior officials to stay present in court at the next hearing: V Hekali Zhimomi, Principal Secretary of the Medical Health Department; Neha Sharma, Director General of Medical Education; and Anurag Yadav, Principal Secretary of the Social Welfare Department.

Monday’s hearing had already put the state on the defensive

The direction did not come out of nowhere. A day earlier, on October 12, the same bench expressed strong displeasure over the state government’s stand on admissions of SC candidates beyond the prescribed limit. The state’s counsel submitted that the social welfare department had not agreed with the undertaking the government gave the court last year.

The bench questioned why the court was never told about the differences between departments. It observed that the state government is a single entity and cannot justify missing its own undertaking by pointing at departmental disagreements.

“The state government is a single entity and it cannot justify non-compliance with judicial orders and its own undertaking by citing differences between departments,” the bench observed, while summoning the social welfare department’s principal secretary with the relevant records.

The September 16 order that started this round

To understand the numbers the court wants, you need the backstory. On September 16, a different bench of the court, comprising Justices Alok Mathur and Amitabh Kumar Rai, stayed the implementation of a nearly 91 per cent reservation arrangement for NEET-UG admissions in these four colleges. Counselling was allowed to continue, but on the reservation percentages applicable in other government medical colleges: 21 per cent for Scheduled Castes, 2 per cent for Scheduled Tribes and 27 per cent for Other Backward Classes.

The order came on a petition by NEET-UG 2026 candidates from the general and EWS categories. They had challenged a government order dated September 1, 2026, under which 62 of the 85 seats in each college were reserved for SC candidates, with 5 for ST and 11 for OBC, leaving only 7 unreserved. The court also asked the Additional Chief Secretary of Medical Education to show cause why contempt proceedings should not begin for the alleged failure to honour an undertaking the state gave last year.

That undertaking matters. The state had promised the court that the reservation arrangement in these colleges would be brought in line with the statutory provisions from the 2026-27 academic session. The September 16 bench prima facie held that the government’s September 1 order defied both the court’s earlier directions and that undertaking.

What the 2006 Act actually prescribes

The law at the centre of the case is the Uttar Pradesh Admission to Educational Institutions (Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Act, 2006. It fixes reservation at 21 per cent for SCs, 2 per cent for STs and 27 per cent for OBCs. Together, that is 50 per cent.

Everything the court is checking this week flows from one question: did admissions in these four colleges stay inside that 50 per cent? The data the state must now hand over, split at the September 16 line, will let the court compare what happened before its interim order and after it.

What this means for NEET-UG 2026 students

If you are part of this year’s MBBS counselling, here is where things stand:

• Counselling continues for now. The court has not stopped admissions. The four colleges are admitting students with the statutory 21:2:27 reservation.
• But every admission is provisional in effect. The court has said admissions remain subject to the final outcome of the case. If the data shows rules were broken, seats could be reshuffled.
• The next hearing is the one to watch. With the admission numbers on record and three senior officials asked to remain present, the court is clearly preparing to test the state’s claims against its own files.
• Keep your paperwork in order. If you took a seat in one of these four colleges during the NEET UG 2026 stray vacancy round, keep your allotment letter, category certificate and fee receipts safe. Follow only the official counselling notices, and treat anything you read on social media as a rumour until the official portal confirms it.

The case sits inside a larger churn around medical admissions this year, from reporting schedules to proposals to change the NEET UG exam pattern itself. For the full picture as counselling develops, follow our education news section.