In a big ruling on the issue of reservation, the Supreme Court on Thursday held that a person converting to Islam was not entitled to backward class reservation based on their pre-conversion status.
A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar ruled that social backwardness of a person can’t be transferred from the Hindu social order to a non-Hindu social order after he converts to another religion. The Supreme Court dismissed Tamil Nadu government’s plea against the Madras High Court order, which held that a person converting to Islam can’t claim reservation under Backward Class (Muslim) category solely on the basis of conversion. “Conversion to a non-Hindu social order does not, by itself, confer membership of any particular backward caste community. The Tamil Nadu government had challenged the High Court order in the Supreme Court. Such conversion severs the legal foundation of an entitlement conditioned upon membership of the Hindu social order,” top court observed. “Where a person converts from the Hindu social order to a non-Hindu social order and subsequently reconverts to the Hindu social order, their entitlement to affirmative action cannot be determined merely by reference to their antecedent status. Such determination requires an independent, fact-specific assessment of whether the original caste or social identity has genuinely revived upon reconversion and whether the person has satisfied the applicable constitutional and legal requirements,” the bench added.
The state government argued that those who are socially and educationally backward should not lose the benefit of reservation due to religious conversion. The High Court had declared as unconstitutional a Government Order issued in 2024 which allowed a person who converted to Islam from Backwards Classes, Most Backwards Classes, Denotified Communities, or Scheduled Castes to be treated as BC (Muslim) and be issued with a community certificate as belonging to one of the 7 notified sects for availing reservation upon conversion. “No statutory benefit, protection, reservation or other entitlement under Article 16(4), the enjoyment of which is dependent on a particular social order, can be claimed merely on the basis of antecedent membership after a person has converted to Islam, Christianity or any other non-Hindu social order.
A person’s pre-conversion caste or community status cannot, merely by reason of conversion, be transposed into a notified backward class community in the post-conversion social order,” the court said. Read | “Unconstitutional”: Karnataka High Court Quashes ST/SC Quota Exceeding 50% Cap The top court upheld the high court order, which had quashed the Tamil Nadu government’s notification to grant reservation to converted Muslims.
