West Bengal withdraws Supreme Court appeal against High Court order removing 77 Muslim groups from OBC list

West Bengal withdrew its appeal on Tuesday in the Supreme Court against a Calcutta High Court judgment that struck 77 Muslim communities from the state’s Other Backward Classes (OBC) list, Live Law reported.

The appeal had been filed by the previous Trinamool Congress government, which lost power to the Bharatiya Janata Party in May. The State Backward Classes Commission also pulled its separate appeal. The Supreme Court allowed the withdrawal but said other parties remain free to challenge the High Court’s ruling.

West Bengal’s earlier OBC list included 113 sub-groups, of which 77 were Muslim and 36 non-Muslim. In May 2024 the Calcutta High Court set aside that list and cut the state’s OBC reservation share from 17% to 7%. On June 29 the state assembly passed two bills to amend OBC laws and remove the specified Muslim communities from the list, bringing the quota down to 7% and reorganising backward-class categories in line with the court’s direction.