The admission process for undergraduate courses to government and aided colleges will start on June 18 through the state-run centralised admission portal, education minister Bratya Basu announced on Tuesday.

The announcement was made at 2pm, just hours before Calcutta High Court ordered an interim stay on an earlier notification that the state government had issued, announcing the OBC reservation with a fresh composition in education and jobs.

A senior education department official said the interim order would not create hurdles for the undergraduate admission process.

“We will study the court order in detail. But the undergraduate admission process will kick off as scheduled from Wednesday,” the official told The Telegraph.

Basu said the admission process could not be started earlier because of the OBC reservation issue.

When asked about how the admission process in minority and autonomous colleges started immediately after the publication of the Plus-II board results, the minister said: “I have to check this before I can comment.”

A division bench headed by Justice Rajasekhar Mantha issued an interim stay on the notification in response to a petition challenging the notification issued after the state cabinet finalised the composition for the OBC reservation on June 3.

Although officials claimed that the order would not impact the entry process, Bengal’s former advocate general, Jayanta Mitra, said it could affect the process.

“I am yet to go through the copy of the order. But if what you are saying is true, then this is bound to impact the undergraduate admission process so long as the interim order remains in force,” former advocate general Jayanta Mitra told The Telegraph.

The issue of OBC reservation and its impact on the admission process was raised at Bikash Bhavan during a press conference held by the education minister on Tuesday.

What if the court stayed the state government’s notification on OBC reservation? “There is no road blockade to the admission. If the court says anything adverse, then we will have to see what emergency steps could be taken,” the minister said.

Education secretary Binod Kumar was present at the press conference. The minister said the registration and application process to secure admission to 467 government and aided colleges will continue till July 1, the first phase of the admission process.

Merit lists and seat allotment details according to colleges and programmes will be published on July 6.

“Admission against seat allotment will continue from July 6 to 12,” the minister said.

There will be an upgrade round during which candidates who have been allotted seats can look for their preferred institutions and courses.

Classes of the new session are scheduled to start from August 1.

The schedule for the second phase of the admission process, which will start from August 2, has been uploaded to the higher education department’s website.

Basu said there was a need to “rationalise” the number of undergraduate seats in government and aided colleges, considering that seats are remaining vacant in some colleges.

The minister said that 4,40,000 students out of 9 lakh seats had been admitted to colleges through the state-run portal last year, the stats suggesting that over half
of the seats did not have any takers.