The Supreme Court on Friday paved the way for the Joint Entrance Examination results to be declared in Bengal, and undergraduate admissions to engineering, medical and general colleges to begin, staying a Calcutta High Court directive that had halted the process.
Within hours of the order, the JEE board declared the results. (See Metro)
The top court issued the stay after the Bengal government argued that the high court’s August 7 order violated Article 15(5) and Article 16(4), which deal with a state’s powers to reserve seats and posts for disadvantaged communities.
The matter relates to the Bengal government’s notification of 140 new OBC sub-castes that the high court had stayed. However, on July 28, the apex court stayed the high court stay, which had threatened to jeopardise the publication of the JEE merit lists, which hinge on reservations.
As the JEE board was poised to release the results, Justice Kaushik Chanda of the high court on August 7 stayed their publication, directing the board to rework the merit lists using pre-2010 OBC reservation norms. The order said the Supreme Court’s July 28 interim order “does not revive or validate” the OBC-A and OBC-B certificates cancelled by the high court on May 22 last year. It said the JEE board had allowed candidates to take the exam using these cancelled OBC certificates.
The deadlock stalled not just BTech admissions — dependent on the JEE results — but also medical and general college admissions, which too are impacted by reservations.
On Friday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the state government, told the apex court that the high court order ran counter to several Supreme Court judgments, including the nine-judge constitution bench ruling in the Indra Sawhney case (1992). This ruling mandated the states to periodically review and update their OBC lists.
The Bengal government told the bench of Chief Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice K. Vinod Chandran that if the August 7 order was not stayed, OBC reservation would fall to just 7 per cent against the state’s move to provide for a 17 per cent quota.
Justice Gavai then issued a notice to the original petitioner before the high court and stayed the August 7 order.
BTech admissions to over 100 private engineering colleges, 10 government colleges, and two state-aided universities — Jadavpur and Calcutta — depend on the state JEE ranks.
Bengal’s OBC list also affects admissions to 85 per cent of the MBBS seats — allotted to its own students — in its medical colleges.
Article 15(5) empowers a state to make special provisions in educational matters for the advancement of the socially and educationally backward classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Article 16(4) relates to a state’s powers to provide reservation in jobs and promotions to socially and educationally backward classes.