HC stays C'garh govt's decision to hike OBC quota to 27%

The Chhattisgarh High Court on Friday stayed the Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government's decision to enhance the OBC quota in educational institutions and government jobs from 14 per cent to 27 per cent.

The division bench of Chhattisgarh High Court Chief Justice P R Ramchandra Menon and Justice P P Sahu, which had reserved its order on October 1, delivered the judgement on Friday.

The state government had recently increased the reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and the Scheduled Castes (SC) in government jobs and education. However, Ved Prakash Singh Thakur and others had filed petitions challenging the government's move, which took the overall quota to 82 per cent.

Chhattisgarh Advocate General Satish Chandra Verma said as per the revision, the state government provided 13 per cent reservation for SCs, 27 per cent for OBCs, while the Scheduled Tribes (STs) continued to get 32 per cent quota as earlier.

In addition to this total 72 per cent reservation, the 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS) took the overall reservation to 82 per cent.

Verma said that in its order on Friday, the division bench stayed the government's decision of enhancing the OBC quota to 27 per cent.

During his Independence Day speech this year, the chief minister had announced enhancing reservation for OBCs from 14 per cent to 27 and SCs from 12 per cent to 13 per cent.