OBC status of 77 Muslim castes abolished in Bengal: How many people will be affected by this and what will be included in the court's decision?

Amidst the Lok Sabha elections, the Calcutta High Court in West Bengal has canceled all the OBC certificates issued by the Mamata government after 2010. In the decision, the High Court canceled the reservation given to Muslims in 77 categories under OBC from April 2010 to September 2010 and 37 categories created for them under the 2012 law.

The court made it clear that from the day of this decision, the canceled certificates cannot be used in any employment process. Due to this, about five lakh OBC certificates will become invalid. However, the bench of Justice Taponnat Chakraborty and Justice Rajashekhar Mantha also said that the candidates who have already got a chance through these certificates will not be affected by the decision.

No mention of Trinamool government in the decision

The bench has not mentioned the Trinamool government in the judgment. Incidentally, Trinamool has been in power in the state since 2011. Therefore, the court order will be effective only on OBC certificates issued by the Trinamool government. The High Court order came in the 2012 case. The bench said that all the OBC certificates made after 2010 are not as per the law. The Assembly has to decide who will be in the Other Backward Classes. Fifth note of musical scale. Bengal Backward Classes Welfare Commission will determine the list of OBCs. The list should be sent to the Legislature. Those whose names will be approved by the Assembly will be considered as OBC in future.

exercise for vote bank

The High Court said that religion actually appears to be the only criterion for declaring these castes as OBCs. We believe that selection of 77 categories of Muslims as backward is an insult to the entire Muslim community. The mind of the Court is not free from the suspicion that this community has been treated as an object for political purposes. The series of inclusion of 77 categories in OBC and their inclusion clearly shows that it has been seen as a vote bank.

What is the matter?

In fact, the provisions of the state's Reservation Act 2012 were challenged in the court. The High Court passed orders on these petitions yesterday. Counsel appearing for the petitioners claimed that after 2010, the number of persons listed under OBC in West Bengal is estimated to be more than five lakh. The Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) was in power in West Bengal until May 2011 and after that, the Trinamool Congress government came to power.

What is special in the decision?

Now the court removed from the relevant list 37 classes which received the benefit of reservation as OBC under the West Bengal Backward Classes (Other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) (Reservation of Vacancies in Services and Posts) Act, 2012. The court removed 77 classes from the OBC list due to the illegality of the report recommending such classification, another 37 classes were removed for not consulting the West Bengal Backward Classes Commission. The bench also quashed an executive order dated May 11, 2012, which had created several sub-sections.

What about the 2012 executive order that was rescinded?

A division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Rajashekhar Mantha, in its 211-page order, clarified that the executive orders of the state government classifying 66 categories of OBCs before 2010 were not interfered with as these were not challenged in the petitions. . The court also quashed a September 2010 executive order, which increased OBC reservation from seven per cent to 17 per cent, on the grounds that the commission was not consulted. There was a provision of 10 percent reservation for A category and seven percent for B category. The bench said that the 10 per cent increase in the percentage of reservation was due to the inclusion of categories after the year 2010.

What else did the court say?

The Court also said that recognizing sections of the Muslim community as OBCs for electoral gains would leave them at the mercy of the respective political establishment and could deprive them of other rights. The court said that therefore such reservation is an insult to democracy and the Constitution of India as a whole.