HC puts stay on OBC list, asks state: ‘Why not wait for SC order?'

Indian Express

9 hours ago

The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday put an interim stay on notifications issued by the West Bengal government with regard to reservations to 140 subsections under OBC-A and OBC-B categories made by it.
This comes days after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee presented the new OBC list in the Assembly. The Opposition BJP had claimed that most of the new sub-sections in the list belonged to the Muslim community.
Hearing a petition, filed by one Amal Chandra Das, challenging the new OBC list, the Division Bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Rajasekhar Mantha directed that executive notifications made between May 8 and June 13 about Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories will not be in effect till July 31.
The Bench, however, said those who received OBC certificates before 2010 are not barred from employment or admission in educational institutes.
In May last year, the same bench of the Calcutta High Court had ordered cancellation of OBC certificates issued since 2010. About 1.2 million certificates were cancelled.
The Calcutta High Court had in May 2024 struck down the OBC status of several classes — 77 classes of reservation given between April 2010 and September 2010, and 37 classes were created based on the state's Reservation Act of 2012 — finding such reservations illegal.
The High Court's ruling was challenged in the Supreme Court, where the matter is still pending.
In the petition filed in March this year, the counsel of Das claimed that the state government prepared the new list hastily in violation of the High Court's order.
The petitioner, who had made both the national and the state commissions for Backward Classes parties in the case, argued that the survey was not conducted in accordance with the High Court's ruling. 'The High Court had ordered that a survey be conducted among every economically, socially, and professionally diverse population in the state. However, the state allegedly conducted a survey among a few families based on districts,' the petitioner claimed, adding there was a little difference between the current list and the previously published list, scrapped by the High Court.
During the hearing on Monday, Additional Solicitor General ASG Ashok Chakrabarty, representing the Centre's National Commission for Backward Classes, sought to know from the state government about the procedure for providing reservation, 'The NCBC in its report found out that Hindu Backward Classes were being converted to Muslim Backward Classes. Minutes recorded by the State Commission show concern shown by officers of the Commission about the communities whose designations have been struck off by the order of the High Court.'
Representing the West Bengal government, State Advocate General Kishore Dutta told the court: 'The matter is pending before the Supreme Court. So, we should wait for the decision. We have informed the Supreme Court about the survey, and the Supreme Court permitted us to continue with the (survey) exercise.'
Questioning the locus standi of the petitioner, the Advocate General said: 'Third party rights are being affected without bringing the third parties in the petition. Which class are the petitioners representing? Why can't they come to the court? Who is Amal Chandra Das? A public interest litigation cannot be a case for one person to keep on filling litigations. These people don't go and object to the commission and come to the court. How do I carry out the admission process? The Supreme Court ordered us to place a report before the legislature… Upon whose desire, I am making these submissions, the court needs to see that too. This will have a deep effect.'
The Bench then said, 'So there is deep concern of the Commission. Why did not you wait for the decision of the Supreme Court? Have you mentioned to the Supreme Court that you will also issue notification on the basis of the fresh survey? You don't take further steps… The exercise that has been undertaken will either be tested by the Supreme Court or by us.'
'Don't give effects to the notification till the Supreme Court decides,' the High Court ordered.
On the survey by the state OBC commission, the Bench observed: 'You are supposed to carry out a review after every 10 years or 5 years.
Have you done the review? What improvements have taken place in their lives? Today, we want to ask you, when we have specifically ordered in a judgment that your actions of giving a parallel power to the State executive and State Legislation is unsustainable in law. How could you have given effect to these recommendations by an executive order under the 1993 Act.'
'The notification was issued by the State before the report was tabled before the legislature. You complied with half the procedure and the rest half you did according to yourself,' the Bench added.
The High Court asked all the parties to file their affidavits on their contentions with regard to the challenge over new benchmark surveys for the purpose of inclusion under OBC categories in a PIL and the notifications.
The state government has included 49 subsections under the OBC-A and 91 under the OBC-B categories vide the executive notifications. It has been stated that while more backward sections of people have been included under OBC-A, the less backward people come under OBC-B.
—With PTI