Railway
The Second Backward Classes Commission, appointed in 1979, was chaired by:
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Answer: Option C — B.P. Mandal
Detailed Solution
Mandal. The Second Backward Classes Commission was appointed in January 1979 by the Janata Party government under Article 340, with Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal as its chairman. It is popularly called the Mandal Commission.
About B.P. Mandal:
He was a politician from Bihar who had briefly served as Chief Minister of that state in 1968.
Work of the commission:
- It used eleven indicators, grouped as social, educational and economic, to identify backward classes.
- It identified 3,743 castes as socially and educationally backward classes.
- It estimated that Other Backward Classes (OBCs) formed about 52 per cent of the population.
- It submitted its report in December 1980.
Main recommendation:
- 27 per cent of jobs in central government services and public undertakings should be reserved for OBCs.
- This was in addition to the 22.5 per cent already reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, keeping the total below 50 per cent.
Implementation:
The report lay unused for about ten years.
In August 1990, the V.P. Singh government announced 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in central government jobs.
The decision led to widespread protests.
Judicial review:
- In the Indra Sawhney case (1992), the Supreme Court upheld the 27 per cent OBC reservation.
- The Court said that the total reservation should not normally exceed 50 per cent.
- It also directed the creation of a permanent body to examine requests for inclusion in the list of backward classes.
The First Backward Classes Commission:
- The first commission was set up in the 1950s under Kaka Kalelkar.
- Its recommendations were not accepted by the government because it had used caste as the main criterion.
Why not the other options?
- ✗Kaka Kalelkar chaired the First Backward Classes Commission.
- ✗Ram Nandan Prasad chaired a committee in 1993 on identifying the advanced sections among OBCs.
Justice G. Rohini headed a commission on sub-categorisation of OBCs.
Quick tip
Remember: Second Backward Classes Commission (1979) = B.P. Mandal = 27 per cent OBC reservation.
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Committees & Commissions — Preparation
This question tests your understanding of Committees & Commissions, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.
This topic covers the important committees and commissions set up in India, both before and after independence, on subjects such as administration, elections, Centre-state relations, local government, education, banking and the economy, along with their chairpersons and key recommendations. Questions usually name a committee and ask what it dealt with, or name a subject and ask which committee examined it. Examples include the Dhar and JVP committees on the linguistic reorganisation of states, the Sarkaria Commission on Centre-state relations, and the Narasimham Committee on banking reforms. A table of committee, chairperson and subject is the best way to revise. Practise the committees and commissions questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.