JAIPUR: BJP-governed Rajasthan is considering reviewing 14 Muslim groups on its OBC listtaking the cue from Calcutta high court’s recent scrapping of 77 classes, mostly Muslims, categorised as OBCs by Bengal’s TMC govt.
“We will examine after June 4 (the LS results day, after which the model code will be lifted) if the inclusion of these (Muslim) communities in the OBC list from 1997 to 2013 was legal or illegal,” Rajasthan social justice minister Avinash Gehlot said.He cited the Calcutta HC order and asserted that religion-based reservations were wrong.
Campaigning in Lucknow, Rajasthan CM Bhajanlal Sharma accused INDIA bloc, constituent TMC and Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee of “crossing all limits of appeasement and committing a grave sin” by giving Muslims OBC quotas.
Bengal OBC Act was in violation of statute, CalcuttaHC had ruled
In its order Wednesday, the HC had junked all new OBC categorisations in Bengal after 2010, saying the authorities had “practised protective discrimination in deviation of constitutional norms”.
The ruling effectively invalidates all OBC certificates given out by successive TMC govts since the party first came to office in 2011. The order points out that within six months of Bengal announcing 10% reservation for backward Muslims in 2010, the state backward classes commission recommended 42 groups as OBC, of which 41 communities were Muslim.
The judges questioned provisions of the West Bengal Backward Classes Act, 2012, that allowed the state govt to include new categories under the OBC A and B lists through a gazette notification.
“We will examine after June 4 (the LS results day, after which the model code will be lifted) if the inclusion of these (Muslim) communities in the OBC list from 1997 to 2013 was legal or illegal,” Rajasthan social justice minister Avinash Gehlot said.He cited the Calcutta HC order and asserted that religion-based reservations were wrong.
Campaigning in Lucknow, Rajasthan CM Bhajanlal Sharma accused INDIA bloc, constituent TMC and Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee of “crossing all limits of appeasement and committing a grave sin” by giving Muslims OBC quotas.
Bengal OBC Act was in violation of statute, CalcuttaHC had ruled
In its order Wednesday, the HC had junked all new OBC categorisations in Bengal after 2010, saying the authorities had “practised protective discrimination in deviation of constitutional norms”.
The ruling effectively invalidates all OBC certificates given out by successive TMC govts since the party first came to office in 2011. The order points out that within six months of Bengal announcing 10% reservation for backward Muslims in 2010, the state backward classes commission recommended 42 groups as OBC, of which 41 communities were Muslim.
The judges questioned provisions of the West Bengal Backward Classes Act, 2012, that allowed the state govt to include new categories under the OBC A and B lists through a gazette notification.
