7 years on, OBC list still to get Parliament's stamp

New Delhi: The Centre has not notified the central list of OBCs for the last seven years since it granted constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes, which mandated that the list of backwards will in the future be approved by Parliament as against the present practice of publishing it through an executive order.

The indecision on the crucial list, well-placed govt sources said, is a result of the govt's apparent reluctance to touch the Rohini commission report on sub-categorisation of backward classes - halting the transition to the new path laid down by the 102nd constitutional amendment of 2018. As a consequence, the central list of OBCs has remained frozen since 2018, without any fresh inclusion or exclusion of communities.

Sources said the central list has to be notified by Parliament in view of the 102nd constitutional amendment which put NCBC at par with the national commissions for SCs and STs, while laying down that the OBC list too would follow the notification process of parliamentary approval like the lists of SCs and STs. "...A process that was initiated in 2019 was put in deep freeze," a source said.

The seeming hurdle created by the Rohini commission is puzzling. Sources said the govt cannot simply replicate the existing OBC list through Parliament because it was found to have many discrepancies, like spellings, and had asked the Rohini panel to compile corrections. But the panel's main mandate was sub-division of the central list of OBCs, which emerged as the key political agenda of BJP a few years ago. But since then, the governing party gave up its push to divide the backward list because of apparently altered political sensitivity, and has kept the report confidential since July 31, 2023, when the commission finally submitted its report after 14 extensions over six years.

"Moving to correct the OBC list would require opening the Rohini report," an official said. Amid the limbo, the list has remained frozen for seven years as the old system of inclusion/exclusion, NCBC Act of 1993, was repealed along with the promulgation of the 102nd constitutional amendment. The 1993 Act had the exclusive mandate of inclusion/exclusion. Sources said there are around 450 proposals for inclusion/exclusion at different stages of processing with the social justice ministry.
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