Attempting To Re-Introduce Percentage Of Reservation Which Has Been Struck Down: Calcutta High Court Stays Notifications On State List Of OBCs
|The Calcutta High Court has now listed the matter for July 24, 2025.
While observing that the State Government has been proceeding in hot haste and is attempting to bring in the self-same classes & re-introducing the percentage of reservation, which have been struck down, the Calcutta High Court has stayed the Notifications on the State list of OBCs.
The High Court has now listed the matter for July 24, 2025.
The Division Bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty said, “However, prima facie, it appears that the respondents are proceeding in hot haste and are attempting to bring in the self-same classes and to re-introduce the percentage of reservation, which have been struck down by this Court, by executive orders and not in exercise of State’s legislative functions and that too before we can scrutinize the steps taken by the Commission in terms of our earlier order dated 6th May, 2025.”
Senior Advocate S. Sriram represented the Petitioners while Advocate General Kishore Dutta represented the Respondents.
Factual Background
A batch of Public Interest Litigations (PILs) challenging the identification and classification of 77 classes as Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the State of West Bengal was disposed of by a judgment dated May 22, 2024. In the midst thereof, writ petitions were preferred challenging the notifications issued by the State and different educational institutions after the delivery of the said judgment. The petitions challenged the benchmark survey, a memo dated February 28, 2025 issued by the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes (Commission) and a communication issued by the District Welfare Officer proposing deployment of enumerators/surveyors for conducting such benchmark survey as well as other notifications dated May 8, 2025 and May 27, 2025.
The Commission was willing to identify and conduct a survey of all the backward classes in the State. Considering such submissions, the High Court directed the Commission to publish the advertisements of the proposed survey and widely circulate the same all over the State. Meanwhile, the petitioner filed an application seeking the preponement of the date of hearing and not to implement the benchmark survey as the respondents were proceeding with lightning speed in making recommendations in derogation of the said judgment.
Arguments
It was the case of the petitioners that the list of 113 sub-castes chosen by the respondents for the proposed benchmark survey included the names of the classes struck down by the High Court. As per the Petitioners, the respondents were proceeding in a tearing hurry and by a notification dated May 8, 2025, subcategorised the backward classes in the State list of OBCs into subcategories being OBC-A and OBC-B. Thereafter, by a notification dated May 27, 2025, issued by the said Department, 64 classes out of the 66 classes existing before 2010 were sub-categorized, and by a notification issued on the same day, 51 categories of backward classes were included in the list. Thereafter, by a notification dated June 3, 2025, the percentage of reservation for OBCs in West Bengal was increased to 17% , providing 10% reservation for OBC-A and 7% for OBC-B, and by a further notification issued on the same date, 25 more classes were included in the State list of OBCs and sub-categorised into OBC-A and OBC-B. It was contended that these Notifications were issued without including the recommended classes in Schedule-I of the 2012 Act upon acceptance of the recommendation of the Commission by the State in discharge of its legislative functions.
Reasoning
Referring to the directions mentioned in the judgment dated May 22, 2024, the High Court noted that it had read down the expressions ‘Government of West Bengal’ and the ‘Government’ to mean the State of West Bengal in discharge of its legislative functions. The Court had struck down Section 16 of the 2012 Act since it empowered the State Executive to amend the schedule and had consequently struck down the 37 classes included in the exercise of Section 16 by the State Executive. The High Court had also struck down Section 5(a) of the 2012 Act, which distributes the percentage of reservation in 10% and 7% to the sub-classified classes.
“The State ought to have placed the reports and the bills before the Legislature for amendment and introduction of classes in the Schedule of the 2012 Act. The executive notifications are in direct conflict with the judgment and the same had not been issued under the 2012 Act”, it added.
The Bench noted that in the said judgment, no interference was made with the executive orders classifying the 66 classes before 2010. The Bench thus ordered, “For the reasons as discussed above, the operation of the notification no. 917-BCW/MR33/2025 dated 8th May 2025, notification nos. 1056- BCW/MR-33/2025 (Pt. I) and 1057-BCW/MR-38/2025 dated 27th May, 2025, notification nos. 1106- BCW/MR-38/2025 and 1107-BCW/MR-38/2025 dated 3rd June, 2025 and notification no. 912/Secy/BCW dated -13th June, 2025 and all other consequential steps taken shall remain stayed till the end of July, 2025 or until further orders, whichever is earlier.”
Cause Title: Amal Chandra Das v. The State of West Bengal & Ors. (Case No.:WPA (P) 111 of 2025)
Appearance
Petitioners: Senior Advocates S. Sriram, Subir Sanyal, Advocates Samir Pal, Debjani Ray, Kabir Sankar Bose, Amit Mishra, Bikram Banerjee, Sudipta Dasgupta, Arijit Bakshi Mitakshara Goyal, Saaketh Kasibhata, Baibhav Ray, Sinjini Chakrabarti
State Respondents: Advocate General Kishore Dutta, Advocate Priyamvada Singh