Kolkata, May 6 Calcutta High Court, on Tuesday, questioned the style of conducting a fresh survey by the state government to identify the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the state.
The fresh survey was started by the state government following its promise made to the Supreme Court on March 18 this year, while hearing a matter where the state government challenged an earlier order of the Calcutta High Court in May 2024, scrapping all OBC certificates issued in West Bengal since 2010.
On March 18, the state government also promised the apex court to complete the process of the fresh survey within the next three months. However, a petition was filed at the Calcutta High Court thereafter challenging the pattern of the fresh survey being conducted by the state government in the matter.
The petitioner accused the state government of entertaining applications only from those 113 OBC communities that were scrapped by the Calcutta High Court.
As the matter came up for hearing at Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Rajasekhar Mantha on Tuesday, the bench raised the question of why the state government had not arranged proper publicity about the fresh survey in order to make the people aware of its details.
The division bench also observed that if individuals genuinely eligible for getting OBC certificates are not aware of the details of the fresh survey, they will be denied their legitimate rights, and hence, the main purpose of the fresh survey would be defeated.
The division bench thereafter directed the state government to make proper publicity of the fresh survey by issuing advertisements at the grassroots level, starting from village panchayats.
The division bench also directed the state government and the state backward class development corporation to submit an affidavit to the court in the matter by June 15, which has been fixed as the next date of hearing in the matter.
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