WBJEE results delay due to legal developments: Board chief

KOLKATA: As thousands of students await the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examinations (WBJEE) 2024 results, board chairperson Sonali Chakraborty Banerjee on Saturday clarified that while it was ready to publish the results on June 5, subsequent legal proceedings over the OBC reservation policy has delayed the whole process.

Banerjee cited provisions in the 2014 WBJEE gazette notification, stating that the state government "shall have the power to resolve any examination related issue and also have the power to issue directions to the Board which the Board shall comply to explain the WBJEE board has no power regarding the OBC issue."

Another clause of the 2014 notification also stipulated separate merit lists shall be prepared for the candidates belonging to the SC, ST, the OBC following the provisions of West Bengal State Higher Educational Institutions Act 2013 and the rules made thereunder.

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"Pls see the Act. WBJEEB has no power regarding OBC issue. We were prepared to publish the result on June 5. But reservation issue became sub-judice by then," Banerjee told PTI. On Friday, a group of aspiring engineering students wrote to the board, voicing concern over the delay in declaring the results. They said it has been three months since the exam for admission to undergraduate engineering courses in West Bengal was held on April 27.

"Yet no official update or tentative date for the results has been shared by the WBJEE Board," they said, "such prolonged uncertainty is causing us extreme mental stress and anxiety".

The aspirants said that they have approached the WBJEE Board and the education department multiple times, but received no substantive response. Education Minister Bratya Basu had earlier said the state government was ready to publish the WBJEE results, but it was exercising caution in light of the legal proceedings over the OBC reservation issue.