Calcutta HC Dismisses NEET UG 2026 Petitioners Seeking EWS Reservation After Declaring General Category at Registration
Eight NEET UG 2026 candidates who filed their application forms as General or OBC-NCL sought EWS reservation at counselling using certificates obtained after 1 April 2026. The Calcutta High Court refused, holding that category status is fixed at the application stage and cannot be changed once counselling begins.
Eight candidates who sat for NEET UG 2026 approached the High Court at Calcutta asking to be registered under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category during the West Bengal counselling process, even though each of them had declared themselves as either General or OBC-NCL when they submitted their NEET application forms. Justice Amrita Sinha, sitting singly in the Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction, dismissed the writ petition on 14 August 2026, the same day it was argued. The court held that allowing candidates to switch category status after the all-India merit list is published would disrupt the entire admission process and prejudice candidates who had correctly declared their EWS status from the outset. The petition was dismissed with no order as to costs.
The Dispute Before the Court
NEET UG 2026 application forms were accepted between 8 February 2026 and 8 March 2026. None of the eight petitioners possessed an EWS certificate on those dates. They disclosed their categories as General (seven petitioners) and OBC-NCL Central List (one petitioner). After 1 April 2026 — the start of the financial year relevant for EWS eligibility — all of them obtained EWS certificates.
The Directorate of Medical Education, Government of West Bengal published a Notice cum Information Bulletin on 11 August 2026 setting out the steps for West Bengal State Quota, Private College Management Quota, and NRI Quota Seats counselling for 2026. That notice stated that candidates belonging to the EWS category who are domiciles of West Bengal would be treated as reserved category candidates for State Quota seats, provided their EWS certificate was issued on or after 1 April 2026 and was successfully verified.
The petitioners read this condition as an opening. They argued that since they now held EWS certificates dated on or after 1 April 2026, the State's own notice entitled them to claim EWS reservation at the counselling stage. Counselling had started on 13 August 2026 and was scheduled to run until 16 August 2026. The petition was filed and heard on 14 August 2026 — mid-counselling.
The petitioners also alleged discrimination: the West Bengal counselling process permitted candidates who had declared themselves as General or OBC to state their category afresh during counselling registration, but offered no equivalent facility to candidates seeking to declare EWS, SC, ST, or PwD status for the first time. They contended this disparity violated the principle of equal treatment.
The Respondents' Position
The State's Advocate General opposed the petition and relied on Divya v. Union of India & Ors., (2024) 1 SCC 448 : 2023 INSC 900, in which the Supreme Court held that candidature of candidates claiming EWS benefit on certificates issued beyond the stipulated deadline cannot be considered.
The West Bengal Medical Counselling Committee (WBMCC), represented by senior counsel, pointed to the Information Bulletin and Counselling Scheme of NEET-UG 2026. That document stated in bold letters that the data entered by a candidate at the time of NTA portal registration is pre-populated and used for counselling purposes. The MCC does not change, edit, modify, or alter any information — including category — entered at the time of online application, under any circumstances.
MCC also relied on the Supreme Court's order dated 10 April 2026 in SLP(C) Nos. 4001-4002 of 2023, Poonam Dwivedi & Ors. v. State of UP & Ors., 2026 INSC 351, which reiterated that for claiming EWS reservation, a certificate of the relevant financial year in the prescribed form must be in the candidate's possession on or before the cut-off date.
NTA's counsel submitted that after the application window closed on 8 March 2026, a correction window was made available to candidates. Once the result was declared and the merit list published on 14 July 2026, no scope remained for any category change. NTA relied on the Delhi High Court's Division Bench judgment of 13 December 2022 in LPA 527/2022, Shyam Sunder v. Union of India & Anr., 2022:DHC:3953-DB, which held that permitting category changes in a large-scale examination like JEE would require redrawing the entire result, creating a ripple effect across the selection process. NTA also placed reliance on the Gujarat High Court's order of 25 May 2026 in R/Special Civil Application No. 7565 of 2026, Vismay v. Union of India & Ors., which held that a candidate who applied as General category and was declared successful cannot subsequently be permitted to change to EWS.
How the Court Reasoned
Justice Amrita Sinha rejected the petitioners' reading of the 11 August 2026 State notice at the outset. The court held that the notice's requirement that an EWS certificate be issued on or after 1 April 2026 was a condition about the validity period of the certificate — not a dispensation from the requirement to hold one at the time of filing the NEET application form. Accepting the petitioners' interpretation would, the court observed, render ineligible those candidates who held valid EWS certificates issued before 1 April 2026, an outcome that could not possibly have been intended.
The court located the first step of the admission process at the filing of the application form. Category disclosure at that stage is final. Subsequent acquisition of an EWS certificate does not alter the status the candidate declared when the process began. The court held that the petitioners, having declared themselves General or OBC-NCL at the application stage, were aware at that time that they did not belong to a reserved category.
On the discrimination argument, the court found it “absolutely fallacious.” The difference in treatment between General/OBC candidates and EWS candidates during counselling registration was not arbitrary. EWS status is income and asset-dependent, assessed for a specific financial year; it is variable in a way that caste-based categories are not. The court held this distinction justified treating EWS differently from SC/ST/OBC at the counselling re-declaration stage.
Justice Sinha addressed the systemic consequences directly. The all-India merit list was published on 14 July 2026 based on candidates' declared categories. Any change to a single candidate's category after that point would alter the inter-se ranking within the EWS pool and potentially displace candidates who had correctly declared EWS status from the beginning. Those displaced candidates would suffer prejudice without ever having been heard. The court held that a right had already accrued in favour of candidates who were ranked in the EWS merit list, and dislodging them would be unfair and illegal.
The court also noted that the NEET process covers several lakh candidates simultaneously. The 15% All India Quota seats and the 85% State Quota seats are allotted through concurrent counselling and are intrinsically connected. A change permitted in the State quota stream would have consequences across the all-India stream as well. Disrupting the merit list at this stage would also delay the start of the academic course, which had already been postponed.
The court applied the four precedents cited by the respondents. Divya was read as fixing a hard rule that EWS certificates obtained after the stipulated deadline cannot ground a reservation claim. Poonam Dwivedi confirmed that the certificate must be in hand by the cut-off date. Shyam Sunder established that large-scale examinations cannot be tinkered with by permitting category changes after results. Vismay directly addressed the EWS-switching scenario and refused it.
The petitioners attempted to distinguish these precedents by arguing that the State's own August 2026 notice had created a specific window for EWS certificates issued on or after 1 April 2026, making their situation factually different. The court rejected that distinction, holding that the State notice and the NEET Information Bulletin must be read together. Neither document, read in conjunction, supports a conclusion that a candidate who did not declare EWS at the NTA registration stage can switch at counselling.
The court also noted that the writ petition itself was speculative: the petitioners had themselves declared General or OBC-NCL status and then, upon reading the State notice published on 11 August 2026 — three days before the petition was filed — constructed a discrimination argument to gain a late entry into the EWS category. Permitting such “lateral entry” would, the court held, “cast a shadow on the sanctity of the all-India merit list and would lead to complete anarchy.”
Outcome
The writ petition was dismissed. No costs were awarded. Justice Amrita Sinha directed all parties to act on the server copy of the judgment downloaded from the official website of the court. Certified server copies, if applied for, are to be supplied expeditiously on compliance with usual formalities.