The Rohini Commission, constituted to examine the sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), has submitted its report to President Droupadi Murmu. 

When was the Commission formed?

• The four-member Commission, set up on October 2, 2017, under Article 340 of the Constitution, started functioning from October 11, 2017.

• The Commission is headed by retired Delhi High Court Chief Justice G. Rohini. The commission is commonly known as Justice Rohini Commission.

• When the Commission was constituted in 2017, it was asked to submit its recommendations in 12 weeks. However, it sought more time as it wanted to obtain caste-wise data. Thereafter the government had been extending its term periodically.

• The Commission had been entrusted with the task to study the various entries in the Central List of OBCs.

• It was also tasked with recommending correction of any repetitions, ambiguities, inconsistencies and errors of spelling or transcription, examining the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among the OBCs, and working out the mechanism, criteria, norms and parameters in a scientific approach, for sub-categorization within such OBCs. 

• According to Justice Rohini (retd), the Central list of OBCs comprises more than 2,600 castes, many of which are small in number and occupy distinct places geographically, which is why it is necessary to have a large sample covering every sub-district of all states and UTs.

• After 13 extensions, the Commission submitted its report to the President on July 31.

What is Article 340?

Article 340 of the Constitution deals with the appointment of a commission to investigate the conditions of backward classes.

It says:

(1) The President may by order appoint a commission consisting of such persons as he thinks fit to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes within the territory of India and the difficulties under which they labour and to make recommendations as to the steps that should be taken by the Union or any state to remove such difficulties and to improve their condition and as to the grants that should be made for the purpose by the Union or any state the conditions subject to which such grants should be made, and the order appointing such commission shall define the procedure to be followed by the commission.

(2) A commission so appointed shall investigate the matters referred to them and present to the President a report setting out the facts as found by them and making such recommendations as they think proper

(3) The President shall cause a copy of the report so presented together with a memorandum explaining the action taken thereon to be laid before each House of Parliament.

First Backward Classes Commission

• The Other Backward Classes (OBCs) have historically suffered social and educational backwardness. ‘Backward Classes’ constitute such classes or citizens, other than the SCs and STs.

• In view of Article 16(4) of the Constitution and in response to demands for reservation and other benefits for Backward Classes in other parts of India and in the Centre, the government appointed a Backward Classes Commission under Article 340 of the Constitution on January 29, 1953. 

• The Commission, popularly known as the Kaka Kalelkar Commission, was required “to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes within the territory of India and the difficulties under which they labour and to make recommendations as to the steps that should be taken by the Union or any State to remove difficulties and to improve their conditions”.

• The panel prepared a list of 2,399 backward castes/communities for the entire country and 837 of those were classified as ‘most backward’.

• The Commission submitted its report on March 30, 1955. It was considered by the government for over five years, but was rejected in 1961. 

Second Backward Classes Commission

• The Centre appointed the Second Backward Classes Commission (Mandal Commission) under Article 340 on January 1, 1979 to investigate the conditions of the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes and recommend the criteria for defining such classes of citizens, steps to be taken for their advancement and examine the desirability or otherwise of making provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of such backward classes of citizens which are not adequately represented in public services and posts in connection with the affairs of the Union or of any state. 

• The Commission submitted its report on December 31, 1980.

• The Mandal Commission had estimated OBC population at 52 per cent of the total population.

• The first tangible step for the implementation of the recommendations of the Mandal Commission’s report was taken in 1990. It was in August 1990 that the government took the historic decision to introduce reservation of 27 per cent for Backward Classes on the basis of the Mandal Commission’s recommendations. 

• This was announced in the Parliament by then Prime Minister V.P. Singh on August 7, 1990. 

• Formal orders were issued thereafter providing reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBCs) of 27 per cent of the vacancies filled by direct recruitment in civil posts and services under the central government and Public Sector Undertakings and financial institutions for SEBCs. 

• A number of writ petitions were filed in the Supreme Court questioning the order along with applications for staying it. 

• The Supreme Court in its landmark judgment on November 16, 1992 in writ petition — Indra Sawhney and Others vs Union of India, popularly known as the Mandal Case — held the government order valid and enforceable subject to the exclusion to the socially advanced persons/sections from the notified Backward Classes. It directed that the implementation of the order shall be subject to the exclusion of the socially advanced members/sections (‘creamy layer’ as it was termed) of the Backward Classes. 

• The members of the Other Backward Classes who fall in ‘creamy layer’ shall not get the benefit of reservation.

• It also capped caste-based reservation at 50 per cent, ruling that “no provision of reservation or preference can be so vigorously pursued as to destroy the very concept of equality”. The limit could be exceeded only in compelling circumstances, it added.

• Another direction of the Supreme Court required the Centre, and each of the state governments and administrations of Union Territories to constitute a permanent body, in the nature of a Commission or Tribunal, for advising the respective governments on the requests for inclusion and complaints of over-inclusion or under-inclusion in the lists of Backward Classes and also directed that the advice tendered by such body shall ordinarily be binding upon the concerned government.  

• In pursuance of this direction of the Supreme Court, the Centre enacted the National Commission For Backward Classes Act, 1993, setting up a National Commission For Backward Classes. The Commission had been reconstituted seven times up to 2016.

• For empowerment of the OBCs, the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) was given constitutional status in August 2018 by insertion of Article 338B in the Constitution. The erstwhile NCBC Act of 1993 was simultaneously repealed as per NCBC (repeal) Act, 2018.

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