New Delhi: Wasim Akram Mondal, 26, a resident of Pukhuria village in West Bengal’s Nadia district, has been looking for a government job while preparing for the West Bengal Civil Service (WBCS) examinations. A graduate in history, and the son of agricultural labourers, Mondal and his family survive on a monthly income of Rs 5,000-6,000.
Yet his hopes of easing his family’s financial burdens by getting a government job have ended after the Calcutta high court in May, struck down the Other Backward Class (OBC) status granted to 77 communities in the state since 2010 as illegal, affecting about 5 lakh people.
“There was an OBC vacancy for a lower division clerk in the Calcutta high court recently; a few other vacancies had also come up at the Uttar Dinajpur court (Raiganj) for night guard among others. But since our OBC certificates have been cancelled, we cannot apply,” said Mondal.
The Calcutta high court order was delivered by a division bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Rajasekhar Mantha on May 22 during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It came on a plea challenging the process of granting OBC certificates in the state under the West Bengal Backward Classes (Other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) (Reservation of Vacancies in Services and Posts) Act, 2012. While the Left front government was in power in 2010, in 2011, the Trinamool Congress under chief minister Mamata Banerjee took over. Thus, almost all OBC certificates cancelled through this order came during Mamata Banerjee’s rule in the state. The court highlighted the commission’s “undue haste” in acting to make “recommendations for the classification of the 77 classes to make the public announcement of the then Chief Minister a reality.” It also said that selection of 77 classes, majority of whom were Muslims as backward is “an affront to the Muslim community as a whole” and raises suspicion that the “community has been treated as a commodity for political ends.”
Shahnawaz Molla, 27, a resident of Pathradaha village in Nadia district is also a graduate and has done a B.Ed but failed to secure government employment.
“My parents work as daily wage labourers and make about Ra 100-150 a day. There is acute financial hardship in the family. Both my younger brother and I are trying for government jobs but are not able to apply as our OBC certificates are no longer valid. We want this order to be stayed,” he said.
Both Molla and Mondal have moved the Supreme Court in an intervention application that came up for hearing on Monday (August 26) when the apex court also heard the West Bengal government’s challenge to the Calcutta high court order and adjourned it to next month. Molla and Mondal’s intervention application is scheduled to be heard again on September 9.
“This (court proceedings) is already a lengthy process but we are stuck in the lurch,” said Molla.
Also read: ‘For Political Gains’: Calcutta HC Cancels OBC Certificates to 5 Lakh, CM Mamata Rejects Order
What the high court said
In its May 22 order, the Calcutta high court struck down portions of the the West Bengal Backward Classes (Other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) (Reservation of Vacancies in Services and Posts) Act, 2012, including Section 16 (“since it empowers the State executive to amend any schedule of the Act of 2012 including Schedule I”) along with the second part of Section 2(h), and Section 5(a) which distributed reservation percentages of 10% and 7% to the sub-classified categories.
Consequently, the 37 classes included in the exercise of Section 16 by the state executive were struck out from Schedule I of the Act and the sub-classified categories OBC-A and OBC-B were removed.
The court said that the recommendations for sub-classification of OBCs by the state were made upon bypassing the state commission and added that although the commission could not recommend a community for reservation solely based on religion, 41 out of the 42 classes that were recommended for reservation in 2010 alone, belonged to the Muslim community.
The court also said, as LiveLaw reported, that the commission’s selection of 77 classes of Muslims as backward is “an affront to the Muslim community as a whole” and raises suspicion that the “community has been treated as a commodity for political ends.”
‘Disproportionate impact on Muslims’
In their intervention petition, Mondal and Molla have urged that the Calcutta high court order be stayed. They have also sought that the references in the order to “particular community”, “religion specific recommendation”, “treated as a commodity” and “affront to Muslim community” be expunged. Alternatively they have sought in the petition to stay the effect of the direction to de-classify 77 classes of citizens from the Backward Class list, or clarify that access to special provisions made by the State under Article 15(4) would not be adversely impacted by the high court order.
“The operation and the implementation of the impugned order has a disproportionate adverse impact on the Muslim community which already suffers from various forms of backwardness. The operation of the impugned order can undo the marginal improvement in representation of Other Backward Classes in the services of the State.” the petition states.
The petition adds that the cancellation of the OBC certificates for Muslims has “caused severe hardship and confusion even in accessing entitlements and welfare policies other than public employment.”
“It has been reported that students belonging to OBC communities seeking to pursue professional courses such as engineering are unable to get OBC-Non-Creamy Layer certificates from Block Development Officers,” it states.
While Mondal and Molla have moved court, having no other recourse, some of whom have been affected by the order have also listed themselves under the general category to gain access to education.
A medical student from Nadia district, who did not wish to be named, said that after he cleared the NEET-UG examination, when the counselling process started his OBC certificate was not valid and had to go through the General category.
“The only option I had left was to go through the general category and my parents said that since I have secured good marks, I should not wait for the OBC certificate issue to resolve itself. What if in the second round of counselling also the OBC certificate issue is not resolved and I lose my chance completely? So I decided to go ahead under the general category,” he said.
The petition also states there will be long term and inter-generational impact on the families of the citizens whose OBC certificates have been cancelled.
“It would adversely impact the appetite amongst marginalised communities for seeking higher education, thereby defeating the objective of Article 14, 15, 16, 21, 21A, 45 and 46.”
When asked for a comment, TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee said that the matter is “sub-judice”.
Impact on jobs and educational admission
Unlike at the central level that gives 27%, West Bengal provides only 17% reservations for OBCs. This is divided into-OBC A category that gets 10% and OBC B that gets 7%. The additional 10% reservation for “economically, socially, and educationally backward” classes was announced by the Left Front government in 2010 on the recommendations of the Ranganath Misra Commission Report of 2009, over and above the 7% reservation which was already existing.
According to a PTI report, of the 77 communities affected by the high court ruling, 42 were earmarked for OBC status by the Left Front government. The remaining 35 communities, 34 of which were Muslims, according to the court’s ruling, were added by the TMC government through a notification issued in 2012.
The ruling, which came during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, found mention in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s campaign with prime minister Narendra Modi saying at a poll rally in West Bengal that the court had “exposed the treachery” of the TMC government by snatching OBC rights in its pursuit of “appeasement politics” and “vote jihad”.
According to activist Pasharul Alam, who is working with those who have been affected by the order, religious belief was not the rationale behind granting OBC status.
“It is not due to their religious affiliation but for their social, political, economic deprivation and under-representation,” he said.
Following the Calcutta high court order, Banerjee had announced that the TMC government would challenge it. While the case is in the Supreme Court and is expected to come up for hearing again next month, members of the OBC community seeking admissions in education and employment continue to face difficulties.
“The most important point is that having an OBC certificate does not mean that OBC will get benefits. Along with the OBC certificate, a non-creamy layer certificate is required. After the high court judgement, the issuance of non-creamy layer certificates to post-2010 OBC castes have been stopped. Without this non-creamy layer certificate, there is no chance of employment or admission to higher education. As a result, thousands of boys and girls, unemployed youth are being deprived of admission and job opportunities,” said Alam.
Subhajit Naskar, assistant professor at Jadavpur University said that one of the remedies that may address the concerns raised by the Calcutta high court order which questioned the haste with which the 77 groups were identified, is to conduct a caste census.
“The government has not tried to evolve a strong mechanism to identify the OBC groups. SC/STs reservations came through the Constitution, but in the case of OBC reservations governments have failed to identify them through a comprehensive mechanism, thereby putting the lives of so many people at risk as in this case. They could have done a statewide socio-economic census or an important mechanism could be a caste census that Bengal needs. Also, the propagation of the idea that West Bengal is casteless comes at the cost of blurring the caste consciousness of the margin. Hindu and muslim Backward classes do need to create anti caste consciousness.
“On the other hand the judiciary is creating convenient frictions. While the 10% EWS (Economically weaker sections) quota was upheld by the Supreme Court without seeking any data, in this case the procedure has been questioned. So the judiciary is also acting in a contradictory and prejudiced manner in the SC/ST/OBC reservations matter.”
