HC Stays UP Govt Notification Including 17 OBC Castes into SC List

Allahabad, Sep 16 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court on Monday stayed a notification of the Uttar Pradesh government to include 17 Other Backward Castes in the Scheduled Castes list.

The court directed the state government to file its reply on it within three weeks and said the case would be listed thereafter.

The bench comprising Justice Sudhir Agarwal and Justice Rajiv Mishra passed the order on a petition filed by one Gorakhnath. 

The petition stated that the Constitution empowered the Centre to make such amendments and include a particular community in the Scheduled Caste list.

Hence, such a decision by the state government was in violation of Article 341 of the Constitution as it cannot initiate the process of inclusion of a caste in the list on its own, it said.

According to petitioner, the state government had issued a government order in June to include 17 communities of the OBC category into the SC list. 

Kahar, Kashyap, Kewat, Nishad, Bind, Bhar, Prajapati, Rajbhar, Batham, Gaur, Tura, Majhi, Mallah, Kumhar, Dheemar and Machua sub-castes were among the 17 OBC castes.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)