‘State to move SC over WBJEE results row’

Kolkata: The Bengal government will move the Supreme Court to challenge a Calcutta High Court (HC) order that has halted the publication of results for the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE) 2025. Education minister Bratya Basu said on Friday that the matter would be urgently mentioned before the apex court.

The WBJEE, held on April 27, has yet to see its results declared more than three months after the exam, due to a legal impasse over the state’s Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation policy. The West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board (WBJEEB) had planned to declare the results on Thursday, August 7, but the HC’s order on the same day pushed the release back once again.

Justice Kausik Chanda directed the WBJEEB to recast and publish the merit list within 15 days, providing 7 per cent reservation for 66 OBC classes recognised by the West Bengal Backward Classes department before 2010. The directive reinforced the HC’s earlier order of May 21, which had mandated adherence to a Division Bench judgment dated May 22, 2024. That ruling had invalidated OBC-A and OBC-B classifications introduced after 2010 and quashed related reservation quotas and certificates.

The latest order also affects nine other examinations conducted by the Board, leaving nearly three lakh students in uncertainty.

Reacting to the order, Basu said: “After the Supreme Court’s ruling, I did not anticipate the High Court would consider something different. We will take the matter to the country’s apex court

without delay.”