The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed "until further orders" Calcutta High Court from dealing with petitions relating to the classification of 77 communities as Other Backward Classes given under the West Bengal Backward Classes (Reservation of Vacancies in Services and Posts) Act, 2012, as the top court was seized of the matter.
Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, heading a three-judge bench, wondered during a brief hearing how the high court could hear the matter when the Supreme Court was already seized of the matter.
“When the Supreme Court is seized of the matter, why should the high court continue with the proceedings in the matter?” Justice Gavai asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state, along with senior counsel Jaideep Gupta, besides senior advocate Guru Krishna Kumar, representing some of the petitioners before the high court.
The bench, which included Justices K. Vinod Chandran and Vipul M. Pancholi, observed during the brief hearing that a counsel referred to some matters relating to the issue pending before the high court, which was scheduled to take them up on November 18. At this juncture, the CJI asked how the high court can deal with the issue.
The bench, while adjourning the matter for four weeks, then dictated an order saying: “List the matter after four weeks…in the meantime until further orders the high court of Calcutta shall not provide with the hearing of the case….”
On August 22, the Supreme Court had stayed the Calcutta High Court direction that had earlier directed the state to follow the OBC reservation policy based on the pre-2010 OBC list for revising the merit list of the 2025 Joint Entrance Exams conducted by the West Bengal Joint Entrance Exam Board (WBJEEB).
An earlier bench of Chief Justice Gavai and Justice K. Vinod Chandran stayed the August 7 order passed by a single judge of the Calcutta High Court after the Bengal government rushed to the top court, assailing the impugned order on the ground that it violated Article 15(5) and Article 16(4).
While Article 15(5) empowers the state to make any special provision for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in matters relating to education, Article 16(4) relates to the state’s power to provide reservation benefits to socially and educationally backward classes of citizens in matters relating to employment and promotions.
The state had contended that the impugned order was passed in the teeth of several Supreme Court judgments, including the nine-judge constitution bench ruling in the Indra Sawhney case vis-à-vis reservation benefits and also the July 28 Supreme Court order by which it had stayed an earlier order of the Bengal government preparing a new list of OBC by including more communities.
According to the state, the new list of OBCs had been released only after an extensive survey and study of the various classes of citizens eligible to be included in the list of OBCs. It was submitted that if the August 7 order of Calcutta High Court was not stayed, then the OBC reservation benefits would come down to just 7 per cent as against the state's move to provide for 17 per cent OBC reservation.