Keywords: Scheduled Caste status, religion neutral, Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, National Backward Class Commission Report of 1955, Elayaperumal Commission Report, High Power Panel on Minorities, 1983, Justice Renganath Mishra Report, 2007 report from the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, Dalits of SC origin.
A petition has been submitted before the Apex Court urging the removal of religion as a determining factor for granting Scheduled Caste status.
The Court has directed that the petition filed by Tamil activist Kundanthai Arasan, president of a Kumbakonam-based political movement named the Viduthalai Tamil Puligal Katchibe, be consolidated with an existing petition seeking Scheduled Caste reservations for Dalits who converted to Christianity and Islam.
The petitioner, represented by advocates Franklin Caesar Thomas and Chand Qureshi, has demanded that of paragraph (3) of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, issued under Article 341(1) of the Indian Constitution, be declared unconstitutional and void. The paragraph states that individuals who do not belong to the Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist religions cannot be granted Scheduled Caste status.
The petitioner seeks that Scheduled Caste status should be granted independent of religious affiliation, allowing Christians and Muslims from Scheduled Caste backgrounds to benefit from this provision.
The petitioner argues that the 1950 Order goes beyond the scope of its parent provision, Article 341(1), which does not explicitly exclude any religious community from the benefits of reservation in employment and education.
The petitioner contends that since “religion” is not mentioned in Article 341(1), the religious prohibition imposed by Paragraph 3 of the Constitution Schedule Castes Order, regarding Muslims and Christians, should be invalidated. The petitioner claims that this prohibition is violative of Articles 14, 15, 16 and 25. It asserts that religion should not be the criterion for denying SC status since it is not the basis upon which it is granted.
The petitioner further argues that caste discrimination and untouchability are social practice rather than religious practices. Christians and Muslims from Scheduled Caste backgrounds experience the same discrimination based on untouchability as their counterparts from Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist communities. This is supported by references to the National Backward Class Commission Report of 1955 which acknowledges that caste continues to influence Indian Christians in matters related to untouchability and social structure. The Elayaperumal Commission Report also supports the argument, recommending that Scheduled Castes who have converted to religions other than Hinduism should be granted similar concessions, as they endure the same discrimination.
While Buddhists of SC origin had been granted the status of Scheduled Castes, as recommended by the High Power Panel on Minorities, 1983, the same commission also proposed extending this status to SCs from other religious communities.
The government’s stance in court is that Dalits who converted to Christianity or Islam in order to escape the caste-based burdens cannot avail themselves of the reservation benefits granted to those who remained within the Hindu religious system.
Rather than implementing the recommendations of Justice Renganath Mishra Report to remove paragraph 3 from the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 in order to make the Scheduled Castes category completely religion-neutral, similar to that of the Scheduled Tribes, the government established a new Commission, led by former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, to examine and prepare a report on the matter of extending Scheduled Caste status to individuals from historically Scheduled Castes backgrounds who converted to religions other than Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.
The respondent’s primary objection to the denial of Scheduled Caste status to Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam is rooted in the belief that “both Christianity and Islam are historically foreign religions and therefore do not acknowledge the caste system as Hinduism does.”
The petitioner argued that neither the Christian nor the Hindu Community in India practises untouchability or caste discrimination, although, caste discrimination persists among Christians.
The 2007 report from the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination suggested that the government should allow members of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes who have converted to another religion to be eligible for affirmative action benefits.
References:
- Live Law, https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/make-scheduled-caste-status-religion-neutral-plea-in-supreme-court-231911, accessed 5 July, 2023.
- The Hindu, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/supreme-court-to-hear-plea-to-make-scheduled-caste-status-religion-neutral/article67041550.ece, accessed 5 July, 2023.
By: Saatvik, BBA LL.B. (Hons.), upcoming law student at Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, GGSIPU, Delhi, an intern under Legal Vidhiya.
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