NEW DELHI: With the Gujarat Assembly elections due in a couple of months and the Patidar community intensifying its quota agitation, the Centre has taken the ordinance route to constitute a commission to examine the sub-categorisation of other backward classes (OBCs).
Exercising power under Article 340 of the Constitution, President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday gave his nod for the formation of the commission. “This decision will ensure that the more backward among the OBC communities can avail of the benefits of reservation. It reinforces the government’s efforts to achieve greater social justice and inclusion of all through sub-categorisation of the OBCs,” the government said in a statement.
The commission will be headed by justice (retd.) G Rohini, while Dr J K Bajaj will be its member. Additionally, director, Anthropological Survey of India, registrar general and census commissioner, will be ex-officio members of the commission, the Rashtrapati Bhavan said in a media communication.
“The Commission will examine the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among the castes and communities included in the broad category of OBC, besides working out a mechanism and criteria in a scientific approach for sub-categorisation within such other OBCs,” the government said, adding that the commission would submit its report to the President within 12 weeks of its formation.
After receiving the report, the Centre will consider ways to ensure equitable distribution of the benefits of reservation in central government jobs and admission in central government institutions among all strata of the Other Backward Classes. The government’s bid to give constitutional status to the OBC Commission with the mandate to look into sub-categorisation has been stuck in the Rajya Sabha where the legislative proposal was passed with amendments moved by the opposition. The BJP saw the opposition’s amendments as obstructionist and so did not bring it before the Lok Sabha to either accept or reject the amendments passed by the Rajya Sabha.
Incidentally, the BJP after failing to dent the Yadav vote base in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, had stuck to the electoral formula to consolidate the non-Yadavs. Additionally, the BJP is facing growing demands for reservation from castes out of the OBC ambit so far in Haryana and Gujarat.
Talking about the proposal to set up such a commission in August, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir already had such categorisation in state government jobs. “There is no sub-categorisation in the central list. The proposed commission will examine the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among caste and communities, including the broad categories of OBCs included in the central list,” Jaitley had said.
The defunct National Commission for Backward Classes had first recommended sub-categorisation within the central OBC list in 2011.Jaitley had said the same recommendation was given by a Parliamentary Standing Committee in 2012-13.