On Wednesday, May 22, the Calcutta High Court delivered a significant blow to the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government by ruling to cancel approximately 5 lakh Other Backward Classes (OBC) certificates issued since 2010. This ruling implies that these certificates will no longer be recognized for job applications.
However the division bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Rajasekhar Mantha clarified that those who had attained employment on the benefit of the act and were already in service because of such reservation would not be affected by the order.
The High Court’s decision came during the hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) which questioned the process of issuing OBC certificates. The division bench, comprising Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Rajasekhar Mantha, pronounced the verdict.
According to the court’s order, all OBC certificates issued post-2010 are to be annulled. This ruling is anticipated to have far-reaching consequences, potentially affecting numerous beneficiaries of these certificates.
The PIL raised concerns about the procedures followed in issuing OBC certificates, leading the court to mandate that the issuance process must strictly adhere to the guidelines established by the West Bengal Backward Classes Commission under the 1993 Act.
