SC bars Calcutta HC from hearing challenge to Bengal's new OBC list

New Delhi: Supreme Court on Thursday asked Calcutta high court not to proceed with the hearing of a PIL challenging West Bengal govt's new list of OBC sub-groups, which includes 80 from the Muslim community and entitles them to reservation in public employment.

Accepting the argument of senior advocate Kapil Sibal who pleaded for stay of proceedings before HC, a bench of CJI B R Gavai, Justices K Vinod Chandran and Vipul Pancholi asked, "When SC is seized of the matter, why should HC go on with hearing of the writ petition?"

Staying the proceedings before HC, the bench adjourned the hearing on West Bengal govt's appeal challenging HC order by four weeks. "Maybe we should say that the matter should be heard by a HC bench other than the one seized of it at present," the CJI observed, though he did not mention this in the short order.

On July 28, the CJI-led bench had vacated HC stay on implementation of the new OBC list that had a total of 140 sub-groups under OBC-A and OBC-B categories, including 80 belonging to the Muslim community. SC had said that it is well settled that the Executive can notify such a list without passing legislation. The earlier list, which was struck down by HC, had 113 OBC sub-groups with 77 from the Muslim community and 36 from others.

The state govt had expeditiously come out with a new list of OBC sub-groups after it was directed by SC to undertake a fresh recruitment process to fill 25,000 posts of teaching and non-teaching staff in govt schools. The earlier recruitment of teachers was quashed by HC with its order being upheld by SC.

On a petition by one Amal Chandra Das challenging the new OBC list, an HC bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Rajasekhar Mantha had on June 17 directed that executive notifications issued between May 8 and June 13 on OBC categories would not come into effect till July 31.


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