The Supreme Court on Friday stayed a Calcutta High Court order directing the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE) Board to redraw its merit list for WBJEE 2025.

The High Court had directed that only 66 communities, which were recognized prior to 2010 as Other Backward Classes (OBCs), should be considered as OBCs for WBJEE 2025.

The stay order by the Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran paves way for declaration of WBJEE 2025 results on the basis of State’s June 10 reservation policy as per which 140 communities were classified as Backward Classes under the OBC-A and OBC-B categories.

A single-judge of the High Court had on August 7 held that WBJEE Board could not have applied the new reservation policy to the 2025 exam since the policy had been stayed by a Division Bench on June 17.

The High Court had also noted that though the Supreme Court on July 28 stayed the Division Bench order, the State still could not have applied the new reservation policy retrospectively as the exam was held in April.

However, the State argued that the single-judge's order wrongly curtailed the scope of the June 10 policy and deprived newly included backward classes of reservation guaranteed under Articles 15(5) and 16(4).

The State was represented by Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal with Fox & Mandal’s team led by Managing Partner Debanjan Mandal, Joint Managing Partner Kunal Vajani, Partners Sandip Dasgupta and Kunal Mimani, Senior Associates Mahima Cholera and Prashant Alai and Associate Abhinav Rana.