The Calcutta High Court’s division Bench today refused to interfere with a single-judge order directing the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board to prepare a fresh merit list excluding certain Other Backward Classes (OBC) groups.
The exam results, initially scheduled for 7 August, were delayed after legal challenges arose over the inclusion of OBC communities notified after 2010. Justice Kaushik Chanda of the high court had scrapped the existing merit list earlier this month and instructed the board to issue a new one within 15 days, based on the state’s pre-2010 list of 66 OBC communities. The division Bench, led by Justices Sujoy Pal and Smita Das De, said it would not intervene immediately as the matter has also been placed before the Supreme Court, where a related case on OBC certificates is pending.
The apex court is expected to hear the issue on 9 September, while the high court division Bench may resume hearings on 2 September. The state government has already challenged the single-judge ruling in the Supreme Court, arguing that the restriction undermines the current OBC reservation policy. Lawyers representing the state told the high court they would urge the Supreme Court to take up the matter early next week. Under Justice Chanda’s order, OBC students will continue to receive 7 per cent reservation, but only under the categories recognised prior to 2010. Any merit list must exclude candidates from communities added after that date.
The delay has triggered frustration among thousands of students awaiting admission to engineering and medical colleges in West Bengal, with a public interest litigation also filed in the high court seeking immediate release of results.