Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the state government, emphasized the need to stay the High Court’s verdict as it was impacting the admissions of NEET-UG, 2024 candidates.
NEW DELHI: On Tuesday(20th Aug), the West Bengal Government urgently requested the Supreme Court to hear its appeal against a Calcutta High Court ruling that annulled the OBC status of several castes, predominantly Muslim groups, in the state. This decision affects reservations in public sector jobs and admissions to state-run educational institutions.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the state government, emphasized the need to stay the High Court’s verdict as it was impacting the admissions of NEET-UG, 2024 candidates.
Sibal urged for a hearing that day, citing the ongoing scholarship issue and students seeking OBC status verification for admissions to medical colleges.
The Supreme Court had earlier, on August 5, directed the state to submit quantifiable data on the social and economic backwardness of the castes newly included in the OBC list and demonstrate their underrepresentation in public sector jobs.
Notices were issued to private litigants, and the state was instructed to file an affidavit detailing consultations with the state’s backward classes panel, if any, before adding 37 castes to the OBC list.
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The High Court expressed its view that classifying 77 Muslim groups as backward was “an affront to the Muslim community as a whole.”
The bench added that it harbored doubts that “the said community (Muslims) has been treated as a commodity for political ends,” and asserted that “this is evident from the series of events leading to the classification of these 77 groups as OBCs, treating them as a vote bank.”
The court clarified that its judgment would not impact citizens from the nullified classes who are already employed, have benefited from the reservations, or have succeeded in state selection processes.
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Additionally, the High Court invalidated the OBC status of 37 other classes under the West Bengal Backward Classes (Other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) (Reservation of Vacancies in Services and Posts) Act, 2012, due to the absence of consultation with the state’s Backward Classes Commission. The bench also struck down a May 11, 2012 executive order that had created various sub-classes.
