Crime Today News
The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned till July, a petition related to the classification of 77 communities under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category in West Bengal.
The Bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice AG Masih passed the order on a petition filed by the State of West Bengal challenging the Calcutta High Court order, which quashed the OBC classification of 77 communities (mostly Muslims).
Appearing for the State of West Bengal, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal apprised the Apex Court that the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes would conduct the benchmark survey on communities who have applied for inclusion in the OBC list of the state.
The Senior Counsel contended that the state was conducting a fresh exercise to ascertain the backwardness of communities, which was likely to be completed in about three months.
He then requested the Bench to post the matter to July, in order to ensure that no prejudice was caused to the rights of either of the parties.
The top court of the country recorded in its order that if, after the re-conduct of the entire exercise, the fresh reservation was provided for and nobody felt aggrieved, then this question would become academic.
To recap, in August last year, a bench led by former CJI DY Chandrachud, while issuing notice on the State’s appeal, had asked it to file an affidavit explaining the process followed for the classification of 77 communities as OBCs : (1) the nature of the survey; (2) whether there was a lack of consultation with the backward classes commission in respect of any communities in the list of 77 communities designated as OBCs.
Later, in December, the Court had orally remarked that reservation cannot be given on the basis of religion. Responding to this, Sibal had apprised that the reservation was granted not on the basis of religion but on the basis of backwardness of the communities. He had further clarified that State of West Bengal had a minority population of 27-28%.
Impugned order of the High Court
The Court was adjudicating a plea that challenged certain provisions of the West Bengal Backward Classes (Other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) (Reservation of Vacancies in Services and Posts) Act, 2012, which made reservations in public offices for those belonging to the OBC category.
In making observations on how the Commission acted improperly in connivance with the Chief Minister’s mission to extend reservations, the Court opined:
“The Commission and State acted in undue haste and with lightning speed in making recommendations for the classification of the 77 classes to make the public announcement of the then Chief Minister a reality. According to the petitioners, the Commission appeared to be in a tearing hurry to fulfil the wishes of the Chief Minister made in a political rally. No proper enquiry was conducted by the Commission inviting application for inclusion in the lists and even after purported preparation of the list, no notification was issued inviting objections in general from the people at large.”
It further stated that the authorities violated the constitutional provisions and practiced protective discrimination in deviation to the constitutional norms. No data was disclosed on the basis of which it was ascertained that the concerned community was not adequately represented in the services under the government of West Bengal. The said reports were never published and as such, none could avail the opportunity to file any objection to the same.
The Court also observed that the recommendations for sub-classification of OBCs by the state were made upon bypassing the State commission, and that 41 out of the 42 classes that were recommended for reservation belonged to the Muslim community.
It noted that the primary and sole consideration for the Commission had been to make religion-specific recommendations. To curtain and hide such religion-specific recommendations, the Commission had prepared the reports for the ostensible purpose of granting reservation to the backward classes. The purpose was to grant a religion-specific reservation, the Court stated.
It was held that the Commission purported to show by way of such reports, which however were not relied upon by the State or Commission before the Court, that it had complied with Section 9 of the Act of 1993 read with Article 16(4) of the Constitution of India.
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