State education minister Bratya Basu said his department was prepared to proceed with the admission and recruitment processes after the Supreme Court gave a stay on a decision by the Calcutta High Court.
On June 17, the division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Rajasekhar Mantha had ordered an interim stay on the Mamata Banerjee government’s notification classifying 140 sub-castes as Other Backward Classes.
The division bench’s order was on a June 8 notification issued by the state government in response to an earlier court order cancelling all OBC certificates issued by the state after 2010.
“Today’s stay in the Supreme Court is a moral victory of the OBC policy of our chief minister,” Basu wrote on X. “We in the higher education department had already anticipated this and are fully prepared to take appropriate actions immediately.”
Earlier in the day, a three-member bench comprising Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai and Justices K. Vinod Chandan and N.V. Anjaria ad commented the high court order as “erroneous” while hearing the appeal filed by the Bengal government.
“We will issue notice in this. This is surprising. How can the high court stay like this? Reservation is part of the executive functions. This is the settled law right from the Indira Sawhney (Mandal judgment). The position is that the executive can do it,” said CJI Gavai.
Senior counsel Kapil Sibal appearing on behalf of the state government had sought a stay saying the high court order had impacted the recruitment and admission process of OBC candidates.
In 2023, petitioner Amal Chandra Das moved the high court accusing the Mamata Banerjee government of issuing a large number of fake OBC certificates since assuming power in 2011.
A division bench of the Calcutta High Court cancelled all OBC certificates issued by the state after 2010. Sixty-six sub-castes that were receiving reservation benefits under the OBC category before 2010 were kept out of the purview.
On June 8, the state government issued a fresh notification bringing 76 sub-castes into the OBC fold. A non-profit organisation Atmadeep had challenged the notification on June 12.
Sibal informed the Supreme Court the new list of the sub-castes was prepared on the basis of a fresh survey and report by the State Backward Classes Commission.
WBJEE Board Chairperson Sonali Chakraborty Banerjee had earlier told PTI that the board was ready to publish the results and made all arrangements to announce the same in the first week of July itself but as the issue became sub-judice afterwards it would wait for direction from the Higher Education department before taking any step in this regard.
