She studied medicine abroad for years.
Flew home with a degree.
Sat for the one exam that stood between her and a stethoscope in India.
She scored 141 out of 300.
The cut-off? 150.
Nine marks.
That's it.
Her name is Keeni Shivani.
A woman candidate from the SC community.
Her argument was simple and very human:
If NEET-PG gives category-wise relaxations… why not us?
She took her plea to the Telangana High Court, asking for the FMGE qualifying marks to be relaxed in her favour.
No.
Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka ruled that courts cannot rewrite statutory regulations governing medical licensing.
The FMGE isn't a competitive ranking exam.
It's a licentiate test — a minimum-competency gate before anyone is allowed to touch an Indian patient.
The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) laid it out cleanly:
NEET-PG and FMGE, the board argued, live in different statutory universes. Different purpose. Different rules.
The FMGE isn't almost passing everyone.
It's notorious for crushing them.
👉 Overall pass rate in FMGE 2024: just 25.80%.
Meaning roughly 3 out of every 4 foreign medical graduates who showed up… walked out without a licence.
Tens of thousands of young doctors. Years abroad. Family loans. Hostel nights. Anatomy in a second language.
And then — a single 300-mark paper deciding everything.
The logic is uncomfortable but clean:
A patient in a Telangana village doesn't care where you studied.
They care whether you know what you're doing.
Lower the bar by even a few marks, and you've quietly lowered the floor of who gets to practise medicine in India.
The court wasn't willing to do that. Not for sympathy. Not for category. Not for nine marks.
For Shivani, the door stays shut — for now.
For thousands of FMGE aspirants watching this verdict, the message is sharper than any judgment line:
The 150 isn't a number.
It's a wall.
And in India's medical licensing system, walls don't move in court.
That's all for now!
