Kolkata: A division bench of the Calcutta High Court Wednesday cancelled all the Other Backward Class (OBC) certificates issued under the new rule in West Bengal during the previous Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government in the state.
In its order, the division bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Anuj Singh has said that henceforth there will not be two OBC categories namely “OBC-A” and “OBC-B” that was introduced during the previous government in the state.
The division bench has said that since OBC certificates issued under these two separate categories will not be valid, henceforth, those having such certificates will be treated under the “general” category.
After 2010, the OBC community in the state was divided into two categories namely “OBC-A” and “OBC-B”.
When the Trinamool Congress was in power in the state, a controversy arose over the OBC certificates issued during its rule.
There were allegations of corruption in issuing all these certificates.
In 2024, the Calcutta High Court excluded 66 communities from the OBC list in a case related to it in which their OBC certificates were cancelled.
The court ordered a fresh survey to prepare the list.
The then Mamata Banerjee-led state government approached the Supreme Court against it.
However, the apex court also upheld the Calcutta High Court’s order.
As per the apex court’s order then, the Mamata Banerjee-led state government conducted a new survey and made some changes in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ lists of OBC classification. The Calcutta High Court also objected it.
It was alleged that the survey was conducted by collecting only 2,500 samples and a new list was prepared on the basis of that.
Through this, a total of 142 communities were listed as OBCs.
When the Calcutta High Court objected to it, the state again approached the Supreme Court. However, this time the Supreme Court did not give any stay order in this case.
As a result, the work of issuing OBC certificates was going on as per the new rules.
The Calcutta High Court has now cancelled those new certificates in the changed circumstances.
