"Prima facie, the high court order seems to be erroneous," said a bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria on Monday while hearing the appeal of the state government.
Kolkata: West Bengal Education minister Bratya Basu on Monday hailed the Supreme Court's order to stay the Calcutta High Court's decision, which had stalled the implementation of a revised list of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) notified by the state government.
The minister said the state government was ready to take appropriate action immediately.
"Prima facie, the high court order seems to be erroneous," said a bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria on Monday while hearing the appeal of the state government.
Basu in a post on X handle, said, "Today's stay in the Hon'ble Supreme Court is a moral victory of the OBC policy of our Hon' ble Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee."
"We in the Higher Education department had already anticipated this and are fully prepared to take appropriate actions immediately," the minister said.
WBJEE Board Chairperson Sonali Chakraborty Banerjee had earlier told PTI that the board was ready to publish the results and made all arrangements to announce the same in the first week of July itself but as the issue became sub-judice afterwards it would wait for direction from the Higher Education department before taking any step in this regard.
On June 17, the Calcutta High Court ordered an interim stay on notifications issued by the state government with regard to reservations to 140 subsections under OBC-A and OBC-B categories made by it.
At the outset, the Supreme Court bench took note of the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state government, and said, "This is surprising. How can the High Court pass such an order? Reservation is part of the executive function."
The state had prepared the new list after the high court, in May 2024, quashed the inclusion of as many as 77 communities in the OBC list.
(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)