Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has ruled that a postgraduate (PG) medical student who fails even a single theory paper must reappear for all four theory papers, and not just the one they failed, along with practical, clinical and viva voce examinations, holding that a PG medical examination is a single, composite assessment and cannot be split up at a student’s convenience.

In plain terms, the court said that a PG medical exam is an all-or-nothing test. If you fail any one part of it, you have to redo the whole thing, not just the part you stumbled on.

Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka dismissed the petition of Salman Mahmood, an MD Anaesthesiology student at Deccan College of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, who had missed the passing mark in Paper-I by a single mark, scoring 39 against the minimum required 40, in examinations held in October 2025, and sought permission to reappear only in that paper.

The court, referring to the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, said the examination consists of multiple components – four theory papers, practicals/clinicals and a viva voce – each of which is a separate “head of passing.” Failing in any one of them means the candidate is declared failed overall and must go through the entire re-assessment process.

“The regulatory framework clearly establishes that the PG medical examination is a composite and integrated assessment… Once a candidate fails to meet the prescribed minimum in any one component, the result is declared as ‘failed’,” the court observed.

The student had argued that the regulations only required him to reappear in the paper he had failed, and that the university was misreading the rules by insisting on a full repeat. The court rejected this reading, saying the relevant provision could not be read in a “truncated manner” to suit the petitioner’s interpretation.

Mahmood had also raised a separate grievance that no marks had been awarded to him for one of the questions in Paper-I, despite him having answered it, with no indication of evaluation by the examiner. He argued this amounted to his answer not being considered at all.

The university countered that his answer scripts had already undergone double valuation by two examiners, and that neither had awarded marks for that question. It also stressed that grace marks are not permitted in PG medical examinations and that revaluation is expressly barred under the rules.

The court sided with the university on this point as well, holding that the mere absence of markings on an answer cannot lead it to conclude that the answer was not evaluated. It reiterated that the assessment of answer scripts falls within the exclusive domain of subject experts and that courts have “extremely limited” scope to intervene in matters concerning specialised disciplines such as medical education.

The court also noted that the student had not challenged the validity of the 2023 Regulations themselves, and therefore could not seek a direction that ran contrary to the express regulatory framework. Finding no arbitrariness or illegality in the university’s action, it dismissed the writ petition.