Is the Bengal government ready to challenge the interim stay on the new OBC list?

Kolkata, June 25 (NationPress) The government of West Bengal has initiated steps to contest the temporary stay ordered by a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on June 17 regarding the issuance of the final notification for the new Other Backward Class (OBC) list by the state, which is currently effective until July 31 of this year.

According to sources, the state authorities have already sought permission from the Supreme Court to file a special leave petition, challenging the ruling of the Calcutta High Court.

In their petition to the apex court, it's reported that the state government contends that if the temporary stay from the Calcutta High Court remains in effect until July 31, it would hinder the recruitment process for this category as previously directed by the apex court.

When the interim stay was imposed on June 17, the division bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Rajasekhar Mantha noted that previous notifications issued by the state regarding the fresh survey to create the new OBC list were in violation of the apex court's directives.

The new OBC list was intended to encompass 140 communities, and the interim stay is viewed as a significant setback for the state government.

To provide context, in May of the previous year, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court annulled all OBC certificates issued in West Bengal after 2010, meaning that all such certifications issued since the Trinamool Congress took power in 2011 were rendered void.

As a result of this ruling from the same division bench, over 500,000 OBC certificates issued during that time were canceled and could not be utilized for accessing the reservation quota for jobs.

The West Bengal government appealed to the Supreme Court, and in March of this year, the apex court permitted the state to conduct a new survey to identify OBCs.

However, the West Bengal unit of the BJP has been critical of the survey methodology, asserting that the new process exemplifies the appeasement politics of Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress, highlighted by the disproportionate inclusion of nearly 90 percent new Muslim classes in the OBC list, which contradicts the principles of equality and fairness.

Subsequently, a petition was lodged at the Calcutta High Court contesting the survey's methodology, with the petitioner accusing the state government of only considering applications from the 113 OBC communities that were annulled by the Calcutta High Court last year.

Ultimately, on June 17, the division bench of Justices Chakraborty and Mantha imposed an interim stay on the final notification for the new OBC list in West Bengal until July 31 of this year.