The West Bengal government on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that a fresh exercise for the identification of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the state will be conducted and that it will be completed within three months. Appearing for West Bengal, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal submitted this before a two-judge bench headed by Justice B R Gavai, which is hearing the state government's appeal challenging the Calcutta High Court's May 2024 judgment quashing the decision to classify 77 communities, mostly Muslims, as OBC, which made them eligible for reservation benefits. “The West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes has informed the West Bengal government that it would conduct the benchmark survey on communities who have applied to the Commission for inclusion in the OBC list of the state,” Sibal told the bench also comprising Justice A G Masih. The bench agreed to his request to adjourn the matter by three months and take it up in July. Justice Gavai said, “If the entire exercise is redone, and after that, fresh reservation is provided for, and nobody is aggrieved, then this question will become academic.” In its order, the bench said, “Mr Sibal.states that the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes is undertaking an exercise of examining the issue of backwardness afresh. He further submits that the same will likely take 3 months. Post the matter in July. Needless to say, the said exercise would be without prejudice to the rights of either of the parties.” Quashing the OBC certificates issued by the state since 2010, the Calcutta High Court had in May 2024 observed that “religion indeed appears to have been the sole criterion” for granting OBC status to the communities. “The selection of 77 classes of Muslims as backwards is an affront to the Muslim community as a whole," it had said. Issuing notice in the matter in August 2024, the SC had asked the Mamata Banerjee-led government in the state to file an affidavit “explaining the process followed for classification of 77 communities as OBCs: (1) the nature of survey (and) (2) whether there was a lack of consultation with the Commission (state backward panel) in respect of any communities in the list of 77 communities designated as OBCs”. Hearing the state’s appeal in December last year, Justice Gavai had remarked orally that “reservation cannot be on the basis of religion”.
