The high court on Tuesday asked the state government and the state joint entrance examination (JEE) board to explain by August 7 why the JEE results could not be published.

A division bench gave the order while hearing a petition filed by the guardian of a candidate who wrote the examination on April 27. The results were to be published on June 5.

“The state government and the JEE board have to file affidavits by August 7 explaining why the results could not be published,” said Justice Sujoy Paul, heading the bench.

The JEE board, which earlier attributed the delay to the legal complication arising from the new list of Other Backwards Classes (OBC), could not come up with any clarity on the results even as the Supreme Court on Monday stayed Calcutta High Court’s stay on the Bengal government’s decision to increase the number of OBC sub-castes from 64 to 140.

The delay has held up admissions in around 100 private engineering colleges, 10 government engineering colleges, and two state-aided universities, Jadavpur and Calcutta.

Representing the petitioner, lawyer Soumya Dasgupta told the court that JEE boards in other states have published their results. Only the Bengal JEE board failed to do so.

JEE board chairperson Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee said: “We are yet to get a copy of the Supreme Court’s order. The JEE board is awaiting a directive from the state.”

Lawyer Jaharlal De, who represented the state government, told the court: “The board has the authority to publish the results. The apex court’s ruling was delivered on Monday. The state will surely decide in this regard.”

In Bengal, IIT Kharagpur, which admits students based on the All-India JEE-Advanced results, will start classes for first-year BTech on August 1. IIEST Shibpur, which admits students based on All-India JEE-Main results, is now conducting its admission process.

Lawyer Dasgupta informed the court that the board’s registrar, Dibyendu Kar, told them that they were awaiting a directive from the government on the publication of the results.

“Kar’s letter, dated July 25, reached us on Monday. We brought this to the notice of the division bench on Tuesday. Following this, the division bench asked the state and the board to submit affidavits by August 7,” Dasgupta told The Telegraph.