NEW DELHI: The Justice Rohini Commission is planning to conduct its consultations with states through video conferencing to seek clarifications on the different ambiguities in the Central and state lists of OBCs.
The task of the commission, which is headed by former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court G Rohini, is to identify castes, communities, sub-castes, synonyms in the central list of OBCs and classifying them into sub-categories.
The mandate of the commission is to examine the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among castes or communities included in the OBC broad category with reference to such classes included in the Central list.
Constituted on October 2, 2017, the panel has received multiple extensions -- the last being in June. The commission now has time to submit its report by January 31, 2021. The panel started functioning on October 11, 2017, and was expected to submit the report in March 2018.
The commission had earlier planned to visit states to engage with stakeholders. However, that was stalled amid the pandemic. Ambiguities include repetitions and variations in spellings of castes in English and vernaculars among others.
“The commission is mulling over engaging with states via virtual proceedings. We will propose to hold video conferences with stakeholders to look into the existing anomalies,” said a member. “The commission is preparing a list of queries for each state and the clarifications are required,” the member added.