Allahabad High Court quashes two UP government orders notifying 17 OBCs as Scheduled Castes

The Allahabad High Court has quashed two Uttar Pradesh Government Orders (GO) recognising seventeen Other Backward Classes (OBC) as Scheduled Castes (SC) [Dr. B.R. Ambedker Granthalaya Evam Jan Kalyan v State of UP]..A division bench comprising Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice JJ Munir quashed the notifications on the ground the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order alone can notify SCs, and any change in such an order can only be made by the parliament."The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 alone can specify which castes, races or tribes or groups within castes, races or tribes, shall be regarded as Scheduled Castes under the Constitution, in relation to a particular State or a Union Territory. The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order has to be made by the President of India. Under Article 341(2), any change to the list of Scheduled Castes specified in the President’s order can only be made by parliament by law," the Court said.The President's order is insulated from any kind of variation by a subsequent notification, even by the President himself, the Court said"The only variation that can be done is by a parliamentary enactment, not otherwise," the bench made it clear..Further, while taking into account the mandate provided under Article 341 (Schedule Castes) of Constitution, the bench said that it did not leave any scope to include any caste or group to the list of SCs except by law made by the parliament..The order was passed on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition challenging two GOs notified in 2016 and 2019 that provided for members of certain OBCs to be declared as SCs. This was done under the garb of clarification, stating that it was not meant to specify them as SCs as done under Article 341 of the Constitution..The Court found that the GOs clearly recognised or acknowledged 17 OBCs as SCs."This cannot be done in view of the provisions of Article 341 of the Constitution," the Court made it clear. .The Court discussed judgment of a constitution bench in the case of State of Maharashtra v Milind in which it was reiterated that the power to include, exclude, amend or alter the presidential order is expressly and exclusively conferred on the parliament.It was held that courts could not and should not extend jurisdiction to deal with the question as to whether a particular caste or sub-caste or group or part of tribe is included in any one of the entries mentioned in the Presidential Order."In this view of the matter, the orders dated 22.12.2016 and 24.06.2019 are hereby quashed," the High Court ordered..The petitioners were represented by advocate Rakesh Kumar Gupta while advocates Ajay Kumar Misra, AK Goyal, HN Singh and Antriksh Verma represented the respondents..[Read Order]