The Bengal Government has urged the Supreme Court to urgently hear the pending petition filed by the State challenging a Calcutta High Court order quashing Other Backward Class (OBC) status earlier granted by the State to more than 75 castes.

Appearing for the State of Bengal senior advocate Kapil Sibal said that pending a verdict from the Apex Court the State Government was unable to issue caste certificates to the target population.

The stoppage in issuance of caste certificates was depriving the people to get their caste benefits including admission to medical courses, the State Government advocate said.

The Supreme Court had earlier directed the State to furnish a quantifiable data on social and economic backwardness of the castes it had included in the OBC list and "on their inadequate representation in the public sector jobs." Incidentally a majority of the castes thus listed by the State Government came from the Muslim community leading the opposition parties to question the intention of the powers that be.

The high court had on May 22 struck down the OBC status of several castes in West Bengal granted since 2010, holding as illegal the reservation for them in public sector jobs and state-run educational institutions. Incidentally the Left Front Government was in power when the New list of OBC was mooted.

The Calcutta High Court had earlier thrown out orders passed by the Bengal Government between March 2010 and May 2012 by which 77 communities (classes), 75 of which were Muslims, were given reservation under the OBC category.

While passing the order the Division Bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Rajasekhar Mantha held that the religion had been the "sole" basis for the State to provide reservation. Such measures, based solely religious basis, were prohibited by the Constitution the High Court had said.

Reacting to the issue the Bengal BJP leaders said that the orders listing new groups of OBC passed the Mamata Banerjee was "entirely aimed at polarizing the minority votes." State party leader Dilip Ghosh said that "as Mamata Banerjee has understood that her popularity is going down among the minorities even … she is trying to lure them with such communal acts … she needs this order implemented before the 2026 Assembly elections … but this will make her more unpopular among the rest of the population."

The Left however would not comment with CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakrabarty saying that they would wait for the Supreme Court verdict to come out.