While hearing the petition of the West Bengal government, the Supreme Court made it clear that the basis of reservation cannot be religion or reservation cannot be on the basis of religion. The court was hearing a petition filed by the West Bengal government, in which it had challenged the 2010 decision of the Calcutta High Court.

What did the government argue

All the petitions, including the petition of the West Bengal government challenging the High Court's May 22 decision, came up for hearing before a bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Vishwanathan. Justice Gavai said that reservation cannot be on the basis of religion. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state government, said that it is not on the basis of religion. It is on the basis of backwardness.

High Court decision

The high court had canceled the OBC status granted to several castes in West Bengal since 2010 and held the reservation granted to them in public sector jobs and government educational institutions illegal. In its verdict, the high court had said that in fact religion appears to be the only criterion for declaring these communities as OBCs. The high court further said that the sele,ction of 77 categories of Muslims as backward is an insult to the Muslim community as a whole. While deciding on the petitions challenging the state's 2012 reservation law and the reservation provisions granted in 2010, the high court clarified that the services of those citizens of the deleted categories, who were already in service or had availed reservation, or had cleared any selection process of the state, would not be affected by this decision. In all, the high court had cancelled the reservation granted to 77 categories between April, 2010 and September, 2010.