Telangana High Court grants local status to NEET candidate

The Telangana High Court has directed Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences to grant local candidate status to a NEET UG 2026 aspirant, Kodimela Samhitha, for MBBS and BDS admissions for the 2026-27 academic year.

The ruling follows a challenge to existing admission rules that previously excluded children of certain Central government employees from claiming local status if they studied outside the state. The petitioner’s father, an employee of the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation, was transferred from Hyderabad to Tirupati, resulting in the student completing her schooling in Andhra Pradesh.

The State’s Advocate General accepted that the exemption should extend to such employees. Consequently, the court ordered the university to include the student in ongoing counseling and directed the State to formally amend the relevant admission rules to include children of Central government, Central government corporation, and Central Public Sector Undertaking employees.