Hours before the declaration of West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE) results, the Calcutta High Court on Thursday put a stay on it over the OBC reservation issue.
The single judge Bench of Justice Kausik Chanda ordered the JEE Board to reconstitute a fresh panel and publish the results with 7 per cent reservation for 66 OBC classes as per the May 2024 order of a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court.
He also directed that the entire exercise needs to be completed within 15 days from the date of this order.
The Bench of Justice Chanda was hearing a contempt plea against the state government and the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board (WBJEEB) over the OBC quota order after receiving a mail from a set of empanelled WBJEE candidates.
The board was ready to declare the JEE 2025 results after the Supreme Court last week stayed the Calcutta High Court’s order that barred the implementation of a revised list of OBCs notified by the West Bengal government.
During the hearing on Thursday, Justice Chanda objected to the publication of the JEE results as per the state’s new OBC list of 140 subsections of OBC under A and B categories, and asked what impact the Supreme Court’s stay would have on the declaration of results.
“WBJEE Board shall not publish results on the basis of the merit list prepared by them by including OBC A and B categories,” Justice Chanda said.
Senior Advocate Kalyan Banerjee, appearing for the WBJEE Board, told the court that no further action will be taken in the admission process that goes against the May 21 order of the High Court wherein a single judge bench prohibited the board from any further steps, until the division bench of the High Court decided on the stay application filed against the order.
“ I am just informing the court that JEE 2025 results are to be published today I am just asking that the results be published today, but the admission procedure will not happen until further court orders,” Banerjee said, adding that the Supreme Court had directed the Board to continue with its course of action and consequently, the notification for the publication of the results was issued.
To this, Justice Chanda told Kalyan Banerjee: “Tell me whether the results will include OBC A or OBC B quota or not. 130 classes under the OBC category were cancelled, and 66 were preserved (by the High Court). Has the Supreme Court authorised you to revalidate it? You had said you would examine the issue… You have complicated the issue and notified everything. It is your interpretation that the SC order allows the inclusion of both the OBC A and OBC B. If both categories are included, then I will not allow the list to be published.”
Advocate General Kishore Dutta, appearing for the State, said that the May 2024 order cancelled 113 OBC categories and retained 66, which were listed before 2010. “Out of 66, only 64 were reclassified (in the new list) under OBC A (14) and OBC B (50 ) in the new survey.
However, Justice Chanda ordered the WBJEE Board to constitute a fresh panel and publish the results with 7 per cent reservation. “Such an exercise shall be done within 15 days,” the court ordered, and listed the matter after 3 weeks.