The Anusuchit Jati Bachao Manch (AJBM) delegation of Dalits on Monday, May 22, presented a petition to the Ahmedabad collector opposing any proposal to offer Scheduled Caste reservation benefits to those Dalits who have converted to Islam or Christianity.
According to the organisation, giving quota privileges to Dalits who converted to Islam or Christianity would jeopardise the future of Scheduled Caste generations to come.
The Supreme Court has agreed to take scheduled caste status petitions for Dalit Christians and Muslim converts under consideration in July. The appeals in the case stated that it was unfair to exclude Dalits of both Abrahamic faiths from the list of Scheduled Castes.
The Constitution (SC) Order, 1950, specifies that only Dalits of Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist beliefs are presently eligible to be classified as members of the scheduled caste community.
After a brief hearing in April this year, the three-judge panel of Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, and Aravind Kumar issued their ruling, declaring that the plaintiffs maintain that the process of waiting for the most recent Commission report will be never-ending and that the case will never be resolved. The Court agreed with their argument that the records’ documentation was sufficient to proceed with the matter.
While attorneys Prashant Bhushan, Colin Gonsalves, and CU Singh submitted the petitioners’ case, additional solicitor general K.M. Nataraj represented the union government.
The Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission’s 2007 report on religious and linguistic minorities had previously been rejected by the Centre. The Centre established a special committee under the direction of former judge KG Balakrishnan to examine the prospect of awarding SC membership to those who historically belonged to the SC group but have converted to faiths other than Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.
The bench remarked that it was important for the court to first consider whether empirical data from the 2007 report can be relied upon for deciding a constitutional question.
The Supreme Court agreed to explore the constitutional question of whether the exclusion of Muslims and Christians from the 1950 decree violated Articles 14 (equality before the law), 15 (prohibition of discrimination), 16 (equality of opportunity in matters of public employment) and 25 (freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion) in 2011.
The bench pointed out that it was crucial to have a first debate on the topic regarding the implications of the center’s rejection of the findings and the applicability of the empirical data for resolving the constitutional issue because the court had concerns about the objectivity of the study.
The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950, as it has been periodically modified, is alleged to be discriminatory and to violate Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution by discriminating against Scheduled Caste converts to religions other than Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism in a writ plea filed in 2004 which contests the exclusion of Christians and Muslims from the order.
