New Delhi: Maintaining the previous pattern in the Civil Services Examination (CSE), Other Backward Class (OBC) candidates, despite lagging behind in the interview round, overtook Economically Weaker Section (EWS) candidates in the final merit list of 2025.The final 2025 cut-off (Mains + Interview) for EWS is 926 while for OBC is 931. The cut-off in the main exam alone was 706 for EWS and 717 for OBC. The cut-off marks are the minimum qualifying scores for a social group availing the quota, and they vary across SC, ST, OBC and EWS categories. The final scores reversed the trend where EWS had been ahead of OBC quota beneficiaries due to higher scores in the interview round. Not only should OBCs outperform EWS this year, but doing so despite consistently underperforming at the interview stage signals an interesting development.‘Higher written marks of OBC result in better cut-off than EWS’“Despite some reduction in the marks of OBCs in the interview, their marks in the written examination were so high that it resulted in a better final cut-off compared to the Economically Weaker Section,” said lawyer Shashank Ratnu, an expert in issues related to OBCs and reservation.The EWS quota was created in 2019 to provide 10% reservation to economically weaker persons among ‘general’ communities, while the mandal quota for backward classes has been in place since 1995.The economically weaker sections lagged behind the backward classes in the main examinations in 2023 and 2024. But the competitive dynamics between the two reserved categories proved complex, with the forwards winning the final examination due to higher marks in the interview.In CSE-2024, the cut-off for EWS in the main examination was 696 marks, while that for OBC was 702. But in the final result after the interview, the cut-off merit of EWS was 917 marks, while that of OBC was 910.A year before that, in the main exam, OBC had achieved a cut-off of 712 compared to 706 for EWS. But in the final, OBC with a cut-off of 919 lagged behind EWS, whose minimum marks were 923.Shashank Ratnu said, “The high interview marks for EWS in such a short time since the implementation of reservation raises question marks on the necessity, percentage and stringency of the criteria for this category.”Interestingly, a difference has been seen in the merit list for OBC and EWS in CSE. In view of the new EWS quota introduced in 2019, OBCs dominated the Mains and Finals in both 2019 and 2020.While it was surprising that EWS, a group with less social disability, lagged behind OBCs, it was seen as one of the teething troubles of the new quota regime, with the wider eligible group unaware of its processes and norms. Later, EWS bridged the gap with OBCs and scored higher marks in the examinations.