New status: Editorial on SC ruling on caste-based quotas after religious conversion

In an important ruling, the Supreme Court said that reservation benefits cannot be carried over from one religion to another. The Supreme Court was upholding a Madras High Court judgment, which quashed a 2024 Tamil Nadu government order. The government order said that any Hindu from backward classes, most backward classes or denotified communities could become a member of one of the state’s seven notified Muslim backward classes upon conversion to Islam. But the Supreme Court ruled that a person converting to Islam or Christianity cannot automatically carry over his caste status to the new religion. Paragraph 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 under Article 341 restricted the scheduled caste category to Hindus and, later, to Sikhs and Buddhists through constitutional amendments. The backward class or SC category is a result of conditions produced by the Hindu social structure and is constitutionally recognised as such. Caste-based disability cannot be detached from the caste-based social order within the religion. Thus caste identity is not a personal attribute; it is associated with the community to which the individual belongs in Hinduism. It cannot remain unchanged when the religious order is altered through conversion to Islam or Christianity, which do not have caste as the basis of their social order. The individual can then no longer claim the benefits and the legal protection that are associated with the earlier caste status.

Besides, the Supreme Court also said that a private religious body — the Jamaat — that certifies the conversion cannot decide on the statutory entitlement of caste status. If constitutional requirements were met, there could be Muslim backward classes, but, according to the court, there is a distinction between religion and community. The religious affiliation brought about by conversion does not directly make the convert a member of a socio-historical, not caste-based, community such as a Muslim backward class. This would imply that the convert’s social position in the new religion and society would have to be reassessed to determine backwardness or its absence. The judgment reiterates the boundaries, place and role of caste-based quotas and reasserts its constitutional principle. It shows that the Tamil Nadu government order was misleading since a Hindu backward classes convert would expect the same benefits after conversion. The case indicates the importance of clarity regarding the principle and the practice of reservations.