Explanation:

Supplementary notes: Justice Rohini commission

OBCs are granted 27% reservation in jobs and education under the central government. In 2020, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court reopened the legal debate on sub-categorization of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for reservations. The debate arises out of the perception that only a few affl uent communities among the over 2,600 included in the Central List of OBCs have secured a major part of this 27% reservation. The argument for subcategorization — or creating categories within OBCs for reservation — is that it would ensure “equitable distribution” of representation among all OBC communities.

To examine this, the Rohini Commission was constituted on October 2, 2017. At that time, it was given 12 weeks to submit its report, but has been given several extensions since, the latest one being the 10th. The other member in the Commission is former journalist Jitendra Bajaj, director of the Centre for Policy Studies. Before the Rohini Commission was set up, the Centre had granted constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC).  It was originally set up with three terms of reference:

 To examine the extent of inequitable distribution of bene fits of reservation among the castes or communities included in the broad category of OBCs with reference to such classes included in the Central List;

 To work out the mechanism, criteria, norms and parameters in a scienti fi c approach for sub-categorization within such OBCs;

 To take up the exercise of identifying the respective castes or communities or sub-castes or synonyms in the Central List of OBCs and classifying them into their respective sub-categories.  A fourth term of reference was added on January 22, 2020, when the Cabinet granted it an extension:

 To study the various entries in the Central List of OBCs and recommend correction of any repetitions, ambiguities, inconsistencies and errors of spelling or transcription.