High Court cancels all OBC certificates issued after 2010

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday cancelled all Other Backward Classes (OBC) certificates issued in Bengal after 2010. The Court clarified that it will not affect those citizens who have already availed the benefit of reservation or have succeeded in any selection process in the state.

A clause in the 2012 Act allowing inclusion of classes for OBC reservation by the state government through notification in the official gazette was also struck down. The Public Interest Litigations (PILs) challenged the identification and classification of 77 classes as OBCs in the state. It was submitted that the 77 classes were declared OBC by seven executive orders issued between March 5, 2010 and May 11, 2012 by the state. The petitioners also challenged the constitutional cires of some provisions of the West Bengal Backward Classes (Reservation in Posts) Act of 2012. The number of enlisted persons under OBC in Bengal after 2010 is likely to be above 5 lakh, one of the lawyers representing the petitioners said.

The Division Bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Rajasekhar Mantha held: “Section 16 of the 2012 Act, is struck down since it empowers the State executive to amend any schedule of the Act of 2012 including Schedule I. Consequently, the 37 classes included in the exercise of Section 16 by the State executive, are struck out from Schedule–I of the Act of 2012.” The Division Bench further struck down various other executive orders by which several communities were classified as OBCs for granting reservation in public service. The Bench directed the Backward Classes Welfare department in consultation with the Commission will place a report before the Legislature, with recommendations, for inclusion of new classes or for exclusion of the remaining classes, in the State List of OBCs.

“Article 16(4) of the Constitution has two wings, one is determination of backwardness and the other is whether the concerned class is adequately represented in the services under the state. No reasonable procedure has been followed for determination of such backwardness. For such determination there ought to have been a survey of the entire populace, identification of an existing social group spread over and overwhelming majority of the country’s population. There had been no proper identification of any class in the backdrop of proper survey, consideration of objections upon publication of the notifications in the official gazette,” the Bench held. A prayer by the state for a stay of the order was rejected by the bench.