Reservation cannot be based on religion’: SC on West Bengal’s plea about OBC classification
The state government argued that quotas were granted not based on religion but on the backwardness of the communities.
Join our WhatsApp Community to receive travel deals, free stays, and special offers!
- Join Now -
Join our WhatsApp Community to receive travel deals, free stays, and special offers!
- Join Now -
The Supreme Court on Monday verbally observed that reservation cannot be given based on religion, Live Law reported.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan made the remarks while hearing a petition filed by the West Bengal government against an order of the Calcutta High Court quashing the classification of 77 communities, a majority of them Muslim, under the Other Backward Classes category.
On May 22, the High Court cancelled all Other Backward Classes certificates issued in West Bengal after 2010, saying that “religion indeed appears to have been the sole criterion” for granting the status to the 77 communities.
Subsequently, the state government, along with other petitioners, approached the Supreme Court challenging the decision, The Indian Express reported.
At the hearing on Monday, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, for the state government, responded to the court’s verbal observation and submitted that the reservation was not granted based on religion but on the backwardness of the communities. “Backwardness exists in all communities,” he added.
Sibal noted that West Bengal had a minority population of about 27 to 28%, according to Live Law. He also cited the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission report released in 2007, which said that Dalits in other religions are subjected to the same discrimination as in Hinduism.
He added that 44 out of these 77 communities in West Bengal could...
