The Rajya Sabha on Monday passed the Constitution (123rd Amendment) Bill, placing the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) on an equal constitutional footing as the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (NCSC-ST).
The Lok Sabha had passed the bill on August 2.
The passage of the bill grants the backward classes body a constitutional status. The body had been established under the National Commission for Backward Classes Act, 1993.
The Upper House on 6 August also passed the National Commission for Backward Classes (Repeal) Bill, 2017, which had been introduced in the Lok Sabha by the Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot on April 5 last year.
The bill repealed, in effect, the National Commission for Backward Classes Act, 1993, as the setting up of the NCBC under the Constitution rendered the old Act constitutionally redundant.
However, the repealing of the old Act does not curtail any of the rights or priviledges of the body and upholds all actions taken under the old Act.