Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], June 19 : As the Calcutta High Court granted an interim stay on the state government's OBC list notification, TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wants to solve the problem.
Speaking to reporters, Kunal Ghosh alleged that those who spoke against TMC leaders Birbaha Hansda and Debnath Hansda have a hatred against OBCs.
TMC leader Ghosh said, "Mamata Banerjee wants to solve this problem... Those who spoke about our leaders, Birbaha Hansda and Debnath Hansda, said that they are under our shoes. They have so much hate in their hearts against the whole OBC..."
Calling the opposition anti-OBC, he added that the government is looking to take a legal step in the wake of the interim stay by the High Court.
"Mamata Banerjee wants to solve it, and those people do not want to solve it. They are anti-OBC, and the government is looking at what should be done legally," he told the reporters.
The Calcutta High Court on Monday gave an interim stay on the state government's notifications on the OBC list till July 31.
A division bench comprising Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Raja Sekhar Mantha passed the interim order while hearing petitions challenging the state's classification of communities under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category.
Judges said that necessary steps should be taken regarding the 66 communities belonging to the OBC category.
There are 140 listed communities in this latest OBC notification. However, OBC certificates issued before 2010 under the 1993 law remain valid for employment and admissions.
The bench warned that the executive cannot bypass legislative procedures, stating that half the process was followed and the rest done unilaterally. Petitioners claimed the survey was flawed, with limited samples and negligible changes from the earlier list.
During the hearing, Solicitor General Ashok Chakraborty, representing the Centre, pointed out that the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) had sought clarification from the state on how Muslim and OBC classifications were identified. The NCBC minutes mentioned that several communities had converted from Hinduism to Islam, complicating census data.
Justice Rajasekhar Mantha questioned the state, saying, "You have done half the work according to the 2012 OBC Act. Then you have gone back to the 1993 Act. Why is this? Why didn't you amend the 2012 Act? You have been providing benefits for the last 15 years. The law says that a survey has to be done after 10 years. That survey has not been done."