Achi news desk-
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday struck down the OBC (Other Backward Class) status of several sections in West Bengal and found such reservation under the 2012 State Vacancies Act illegal.
In passing the order on the petitions challenging the provisions of the law, the High Court clarified that the members of the classes whose OBC status has been removed, if they are already in service or have availed the reservation balance or appeared in the entire selection process of the state if you have succeeded in B.Sc., your services will not be affected from this decision.
A lawyer associated with the case said that this decision will affect a large number of people in the country.
The court removed from the relevant list several classes who were given the benefit of reservation as OBC under the West Bengal Backward Class (other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) (Reservation of Vacancies in Services and Posts) Act, 2012.
A division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Rajshekhar Mantha clarified that the state government’s executive orders classifying 66 categories of OBCs prior to 2010 were not interfered with as these were not challenged in the petitions.
The commission ordered that the state’s executive orders classifying 42 sections as OBC from March 5, 2010 to May 11, 2012 were also revoked.
The bench said the opinions and advice of the Backward Classes Commission are generally binding on the state legislature under the National Commission for Backward Classes Act, 1993.
The bench directed the state backward classes welfare department, in consultation with the commission, to submit a report to the legislature with recommendations for inclusion of new classes or exclusion of the remaining classes in the state list of OBCs.
