India, July 28 -- The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Calcutta high court order, pausing the West Bengal government's notification extending reservation benefits to 140 communities under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, terming it "erroneous".

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai and justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria expressed surprise over the June 17 order staying a June 10 classification notification in the absence of legislation. It said that a nine-judge Supreme Court bench in the Indira Sawhney case (1992) allowed the executive to identify socially and educationally backward classes for reservation through executive notification.

The observation came in the context of the high court observati...