The question of OBC reservation in Bengal is set to snowball into a controversy ahead of the next year’s Assembly poll with sections of the Muslim community accusing the state government of mishandling the issue.
With a Supreme Court hearing scheduled on November 5, a prominent organisation representing the community has decided to engage its lawyers, signalling a loss of faith in the way the state government is pursuing the case.
On Thursday, a large number of Muslim youths gathered at a conference in Behrampore, Murshidabad, on Thursday, organised by social organisation, Progressive Intellectuals of Bengal, to voice their disappointment.
Then, the youths led a rally through the town demanding restoration of the OBC reservation benefits that the community enjoyed earlier.
“Muslims earlier were entitled to 10 per cent reservation under the OBC category,” said Pratichi Trust secretary Sabir Ahamed.
Pratichi Trust was set up by economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen to work in areas of literacy, basic health care and gender equity in India and Bangladesh.
“In 2012, a case was filed in Calcutta High Court challenging this inclusion. The verdict, delivered in 2024, went against the state government. Within three or four months, a new OBC classification was created by the government, but Muslims were left out. This is clear deprivation,” Ahamed said, alleging the state showed little seriousness in fighting the case.
“The legal battle dragged on for 12 years because of the state government’s lack of will.... The government spent crores of rupees of public money in the Supreme Court in different cases, but didn’t even appoint a proper lawyer in the OBC case. When a lawyer was finally appointed, he wasn’t briefed properly. The Muslim community is facing this plight due to the state government’s reluctance,”
he said.
He pointed out that Muslims in Bengal are not included in the central OBC list.
Echoing Ahamed, Manajat Ali Biswas, president of the Progressive Intellectuals of Bengal, said: “At the hearing on November 5 in the Supreme Court, the state government is the petitioner. But we do not trust the state government. That’s why we will field our own lawyer.”
He added: “Muslims in the OBC-A group must immediately be reinstated with 10 per cent reservation, and the government should annually publish the list of communities under OBC-A and OBC-B categories.”
The controversy dates back to 2010, when the Left Front government included 53 sub-castes in the state’s OBC list, bringing around 87 per cent of Bengal’s Muslim population under reservation. The move enhanced the overall OBC quota from 7 to 17 per cent, dividing it into two categories: 10 per cent for Group A (comprising the most backward sub-castes, mostly Muslims) and seven per cent for Group B, which included both Hindu and Muslim groups. However, the Left Front’s executive order was never enacted into law following the change in government.
After coming to power, the Trinamool Congress government introduced a new bill in the Assembly in 2012, adding 35 more sub-castes to the OBC list — 33 of them Muslim. This brought about 92 per cent of Bengal’s Muslim population under the OBC umbrella.
But a 2012 petition challenged the constitutional validity of the OBC Reservation Act, leading to a prolonged legal battle.
Last year a division bench of Calcutta High Court comprising Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Rajasekhar Mantha struck down the state’s OBC classification, terming the 2012 Act ultra vires of constitutional provisions.
The court directed the state to frame fresh rules in accordance with national norms before issuing OBC certificates again.