Supreme Court To Hear West Bengal Govt's Plea Against Cancellations Of OBC Classifications On January 28 & 29

The Court was adjudicating on a plea which 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."

Thus, the authorities have violated the constitutional provisions and had 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 is 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, it added.

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.

The Court stated 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 has prepared the reports for the ostensible purpose of granting reservation to the backward classes to hide the real purpose behind such recommendations. The purpose was to grant a religion-specific reservation, it stated.

The bench held that while the Commission purports to show by way of such reports, (which however has not been relied upon by the State and 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.