Monday (November 9) the Supreme Court Dr observed orally “There can be no reservation on the basis of religion.” Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan were challenging the Calcutta High Court’s decision in May striking down the reservation given to 77 categories – mainly from the Muslim community – within the quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
Weeks earlier, on November 26, the Supreme Court refused to recognize a woman’s Scheduled Caste (SC) status after she and her family converted to Christianity.
Through these examples, the relationship between religion and reservation is once again brought into focus. Since the promulgation of the Constitution of India in 1950, the Center and the Supreme Court have tried to define the extent to which religion can be considered in granting the benefits of reservation.
Religion as a criterion for OBC reservation
No express bar exists against the identification of religious groups as beneficiaries of OBC or Scheduled Tribe reservations, although efforts to include religious groups or communities within the ambit of reservation have largely been in the OBC category.
Article 16(4) of the Constitution empowers the State to grant reservation “in favor of any backward class of citizens who in the opinion of the State are not adequately represented in the services under the State”. For example, Kerala has offered reservations for Muslims within the OBC quota since 1956, and other states, including Karnataka (in 1995) and Tamil Nadu (in 2007), have also offered OBC reservations for groups within the Muslim community.
Justice O. Reservations for Muslims were provided in Karnataka after the State’s Third Backward Classes Commission, headed by Chinnappa Reddy, submitted its report in 1990. The commission found that Muslims “as a whole” can be considered a socially and economically backward class. . In 2006, the Justice Rajendra Sachar Committee—commissioned by the Center to draft a report on the social, economic, and educational status of Muslims—found that the representation of Muslim OBCs in central government departments and agencies was “grossly low”, “not reaching the benefits of rights meant for backward classes.” Not done.”
The historic decision of the Supreme Court in 2072 Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) added a new dimension to the issue. The court said that the purpose of OBC reservation was to address the historical discrimination faced by various groups and that “no class of citizens can be classified as backward merely because of religion, caste, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence. or any of them.” Essentially, the court held that religion and other group identities were relevant, but could not be the sole criteria for granting reservations within the OBC quota.
Based on this judgment, the Calcutta High Court on May 22, 2024, struck down the OBC reservation granted to 75 – 77 categories from the Muslim community – the reservation was granted without using any “objective criteria” to determine the backwardness of these categories. It also held, “Religion appears to be the sole criterion for declaring these communities as OBCs”.
Religion as a barrier to SC reservation
Article 341(1) of the Constitution empowers the President to “designate a caste, caste or tribe or a section or group within a caste, caste or tribe to be regarded as a Scheduled Caste for the purposes of this Constitution”. Shortly after the Constitution came into force, the President promulgated the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 (Scheduled Castes Order) which contained a list of Scheduled Caste communities in each state.
Importantly, Section 3 of the Order states, “A person professing a religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism shall not be considered a member of a Scheduled Caste”. The order was initially limited to Hindus but was extended to include Scheduled Caste Hindus who converted to Sikhism (in 1956) and Buddhism (in 1990).
The order was challenged in 1983 by Soosai, a cobbler from the Scheduled Caste Adi-Dravid community, but was denied access to government schemes for Scheduled Castes after he converted to Christianity. He argued that he was a member of the Adi-Dravidian community even though he converted to Christianity.
in court Susai v. Union of India (1985) did not answer whether a religious convert would retain his caste status after conversion but opined that it would not be “sufficient” to access the benefits of Scheduled Castes. Even after conversion, a person must prove that “disabled persons suffering from such caste membership … continue in their oppressive rigidity in the new environment of a different religious community”, the court said.
After this decision, the subsequent momentum of other religious converts within the ambit of SC reservations – mainly Hindus who converted to Christianity or Islam – has seen periodic increases and sudden stops. In 1996, the PV Narasimha Rao government introduced a bill to amend the Scheduled Castes Order to include Christian converts in the list; It was never tabled.
In 2007, the Ranganath Mishra Commission (set up by the Center in 2004) found that “by all available evidence we find that the caste system is a pervasive social phenomenon in India apart from the religious persuasion shared by almost all Indian communities”. It recommended that “once a person has been included in the list of Scheduled Castes, his intentional conversion should not adversely affect his Scheduled Caste status”. However, the Center has been disputing the commission’s findings in recent years.
Questions to be answered by the Supreme Court
There is also a possibility of change in the scope of SC reservation. In the case of Ghazi Saaduddin v. State of Maharashtra (pending since 2004), the constitutional validity of the 1950 order was again challenged. In 2011, the court ordered a constitutional review of Article 3 and its exclusion of Christians and Muslims along with Buddhists and Sikhs.
In April 2024, despite the objections of the petitioners, the court decided to delay the hearing of the case until the Center constituted a commission to examine whether religious converts should retain their SC status. The Center has stated that it has not accepted the 2007 report of the Ranganath Mishra Commission and constituted a new commission under the chairmanship of former Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan. The committee has held public hearings in various states and has extended the deadline to October 2025 to submit its final report in November 2024.
The Supreme Court is also currently considering whether OBC reservation can be granted to a religious group. In 2005, the Andhra Pradesh government introduced a law to provide 5% reservation to Muslims within the OBC quota which was struck down by the AP High Court later that year. Like the Calcutta High Court decision, the court said the government did not use “objective criteria” to label Muslims as a backward class as a whole. However, the Supreme Court has said that the case will be heard after the verdict Challenges in reservation for economically weaker sectionsAs of November 7, 2022, no action has been taken on the matter.
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