JUDGMENT :

1. The present appeal has been preferred by the writ petitioner/appellant, namely, Sudeb Shit (in short Sudeb) challenging a judgment dated 22^nd December, 2025 passed in a writ petition being WPA 29125 of 2025 preferred primarily praying for issuance of necessary directions upon the West Bengal Central School Service Commission (in short, the Commission) to re-open it’s portal for updating the writ petitioner’s category as a Scheduled Caste (in short, SC) candidate in the ongoing selection process of 2^nd SLST, 2025.

2. Records reveal that the Commission issued an advertisement on 30^th May, 2025. Responding thereto, Sudeb applied for the post of Assistant Teacher for classes XI –XII for the subject of Statistics (PG) using the online portal and depositing an amount of Rs.200/- towards application fees, as stipulated for SC candidate. He was thereafter issued a provisional admit card to appear in an OMR based written examination held on 14^th September, 2025. In the midst thereof, on 24^th June, 2025 the Commission published a notice mentioning that having regard to orders which may be passed in Special Leave Petition (Diary No. 34016 of 2025 State of West Bengal vs. Amal Chandra Das & Ors.), the category details are not being collected and will be collected in due course prior to the application being processed and that the candidates who may have already submitted category details may be required to re-submit category details. A further notice was published by the Commission on 30^th July, 2025 stating that in view of the order dated 28.07.2025 passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in SLP (C) No. 17422 of 2025 (State of West Bengal vs. Purabi Das & Ors.) and other connected matters the online portal will be open for collection of category details from 5^th August, 2025 to 11^th August, 2025. It was further stated in the said notice that the candidates will have to login and choose the edit option and then the candidates will have to select category from the dropdown menu and the candidate will have to specify his sub-category. Again a notice was issued by the Commission on 5^th August, 2025 stating that all candidates, irrespective of their category, are required to mention their category (Caste/Class/EWS/PH etc.). It was further clarified that only candidates from OBC category are required to mention their sub-category from the dropdown box provided in the website and others (including General candidates) will mention their category only. A further notice was published by the Commission on 22.09.2025 stating that in case any candidate fails to update his/her category within 26.09.2025, the category of such candidate would be treated as General.

3. It has been primarily argued by Mr. Dhar learned senior advocate appearing for the appellant that Sudeb has been illegally thrown out of the zone of consideration due to arbitrary conversion of his candidature from SC to General category and in view of the observation of the Hon’ble Appeal Court that authorities would be at liberty to deal with the cases of candidates who had not filed writ petition within 2.30 p.m. on 17.12.2025, in accordance with law, the Commission was under an obligation to consider Sudeb’s representation dated 17.12.2025.

4. Per contra, Mr. Bandopadhyay learned senior advocate appearing for the Commission has strenuously argued that the appellant did not edit his category details in spite of repeated opportunities granted by the notices dated 24.06.205/30.06.2025/05.08.2025/22.09.2025 and did not file the writ petition within 16.12.2025 and that as such they cannot be allowed any fresh opportunity moreso when interview is over.

5. Admittedly Sudeb did not file any writ petition within 2:30 p.m. on 16.12.2025. He filed the writ petition thereafter on 18.12.2025. The learned single Judge in the order impugned in the present appeal was of the view that Sudeb is similarly situated with the writ petitioners in WPA 26937 of 2025 and having not filed the writ petition