Calcutta HC Directs ADM North 24 Parganas to Issue EWS Certificate by 5 PM Ahead of MBBS Counselling
A NEET-UG 2026 candidate's EWS certificate was held up due to a name discrepancy in his mother's voter records; Calcutta High Court intervened a day before document verification.
The Calcutta High Court, on 17 August 2026, directed the Additional District Magistrate (ADM), North 24 Parganas to decide by 5.00 p.m. that day whether petitioner Priyangshu Mukherjee was entitled to an Economically Weaker Section (EWS) certificate — and to issue it immediately if he was found eligible. The direction came just one day before the scheduled document verification for MBBS seat allotment on 18 August 2026. Justice Krishna Rao, sitting singly in Court No. 25, found urgency sufficient to act even in the absence of a response from the State, and expressly barred the authority from treating the deletion of his mother's name from the voter list as a ground for refusal.
The Dispute Before the High Court
Priyangshu Mukherjee cleared NEET-UG 2026 with 471 marks out of 720. In the All India Rank seniority list, his name appeared at position 1,32,304, and in the Gen-EWS rank list at 16,401. He was seeking an MBBS seat in a college in West Bengal, and for that he needed an EWS certificate from the competent authority.
He applied for the certificate before the ADM, North 24 Parganas. The application remained undecided. He made several representations to the authorities, but no order was passed. Document verification for allotment of the MBBS seat was fixed for 18 August 2026 — the day after the writ petition was heard. Without the EWS certificate, he could not appear for verification and would lose his seat.
The Name-Discrepancy That Blocked the Certificate
The authority's inaction centred on a discrepancy in the name of Priyangshu's mother. Before her marriage to Prasanta Mukherjee — who died in 2008 — she was known as Kakali Mukherjee. After marriage, she changed her name to Rekha Mukherjee. This change created a mismatch in official records.
During a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, her name was deleted from the voter list on account of this discrepancy. Priyangshu himself, however, remained on the voter list at serial number 280 and had voted in the Assembly Election held in April 2026. His father's name had appeared in the Electoral Roll of 2002.
Counsel for the petitioner, Mr. Abu Zar Ali, argued that the deletion of the mother's name from the voter list should not be visited upon the son when determining his EWS eligibility. The petitioner's own voter list entry was intact, and his father's prior entry in the 2002 roll was also on record.
The Court's Reasoning
Justice Krishna Rao recorded that the urgency was self-evident: 18 August 2026 was the date fixed for verification, and that date was the very next day. The State had been served — an affidavit-of-service was filed showing notice to the learned Government Pleader — but no one appeared on behalf of the State.
The Court declined to wait. It directed the ADM, North 24 Parganas, to “immediately consider the request of the petitioner with regard to issuance of EWS certificate.” If the petitioner was found eligible, the certificate was to be issued as early as possible and latest by 5.00 p.m. on 17 August 2026. If he was not found entitled, reasons were to be assigned.
Critically, the Court added a specific restraint: the authority was directed that it “shall not take into consideration” the deletion of the mother's name from the voter list when deciding the petitioner's eligibility. This direction addressed the precise factual basis on which the application had apparently stalled, separating the mother's electoral record issue from the son's substantive EWS claim.
The Court also granted the petitioner liberty to communicate the gist of the order directly to the ADM, and clarified that the ADM was to act in accordance with that gist, given the time constraint involved. The order was explicitly passed taking into account the urgency arising from the 18 August 2026 verification date.
Outcome
The ADM, North 24 Parganas, was directed to pass an order on the EWS certificate application by 5.00 p.m. on 17 August 2026 — either issuing the certificate if eligibility was established, or recording reasons for refusal. The authority was barred from using the deletion of the mother's name from the voter list as a basis for any adverse decision. The petitioner was permitted to communicate the order directly to the ADM. The matter was listed for further hearing on 16 September 2026.