The West Bengal Assembly on Monday passed two bills to amend laws pertaining to Other Backward Classes reservations and remove several Muslim communities from the OBC list as directed by the Calcutta High Court in May 2024, the Hindustan Times reported.
The amendments will revise the share of the Other Backward Classes quota in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state to 7% from 17% and reorganise the backward classes categories. A law applicable to the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes was also amended.
The West Bengal government’s earlier list of Other Backward Classes had 113 sub-groups, of which 77 were Muslim and 36 non-Muslim. The High Court had struck down the list in May 2024 and reduced OBC reservations to 7% from 17%.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government at the time had challenged the judgement in the Supreme Court.
Introduced by Backward Classes Development Minister Gourishankar Ghosh, the bills were passed with 186 MLAs voting in favour and 17 against it in the 294-member Assembly.
Six members abstained from voting, The New Indian Express reported. A section of TMC rebels led by Ritabrata Banerjee staged a walkout, the Hindustan Times reported.
Ghosh told the Assembly that “as directed by the High Court, all communities included in the OBC list without any survey by the former government, solely to offer undue advantage to Muslims, have been removed”, the newspaper reported.
He added: “Only 66 communities added after surveys have been retained.”
Under the amended laws, the new Other Backward Classes list would include Muslim groups such as Jolah, Fakir, Pahadia Muslim, Hajjam and Chowduli.
The minister also said that the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes would conduct surveys to determine the status of communities seeking OBC status.
“The previous government completely bypassed the commission,” the Hindustan Times quoted him as having alleged. “The bills will also ensure that fake OBC certificates are not issued any more. This was rampant during the previous regime.”
Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.
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