Union law minister Salman Khurshid on Sunday made a strong pitch for sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes at a time when the Congress is making a serious bid to rope in backward Muslims in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh.
“The government is within its legitimate rights to make sub-categorisation among OBCs, which would lead to a more equitable distribution of the benefits of reservation among the castes/communities inclu-ded in the broad OBC category,” Mr Khurshid said.
The minister, writing in the Congress journal Sandesh, quoted extensively from reports of the Sachar Committee and Rangnath Mishra Commi-ssion, as well as a landmark Supreme Court ruling (Indira Sawhney and others vs Union of India) to drive home his point.
Trying to emphasise that sub-categories among OBCs is nothing new, the minister noted while 30 states/UTs had their own list of OBCs in the state list, nine states had sub-categories in the state OBCs’ list. Mr Khurshid said the Sachar Committee, which had examined the socio-economic backwardness of Muslims, “had also recommended affirmative action for Muslims in India through separate reservations”. The minister added that while backwards among the minority population were included in the Central list of OBC, there was a rising demand over two decades for a separate quota for minorities as large sections were among the most backward in the country.
Mr Khurshid said the Sachar Committee had held that by clubbing all categories of Muslims in an all- encompassing OBC list, the Mandal Commission had “overlooked disparity in the nature of deprivations” that some sections of the community faced.