NEW DELHI: Social backwardness cannot be "carried forward" across a change of religion, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, holding that a person who converts from the Hindu social order to a non-Hindu social order cannot claim reservation benefits on the basis of their pre-conversion caste or community status.
A Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar delivered the verdict while dismissing an appeal by the Tamil Nadu government against a June 25 judgment of the Madras High Court, which had held that a person converting to Islam cannot claim the status of a Backward Class category Muslim.
"A person who converts from a Hindu social order to a non-Hindu social order cannot claim affirmative action under Article 16(4) of the Constitution merely on the basis of the social backwardness associated with his pre-conversion status," the Bench said.
"Backwardness suffered in the antecedent social order cannot by itself be carried forward so as to confer upon him the status of a backward class in the religion to which he has converted," it added.
The case arose from a Tamil Nadu government order issued in March 2024 that sought to extend reservation benefits to members of Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, de-notified communities and Scheduled Castes who had embraced Islam. The state government's policy was intended to create a level playing field by preserving affirmative action despite a change of religion. The Madras High Court struck the order down, and the state appealed to the Supreme Court.
The apex court refused to interfere with the High Court's reasoning. It held that a member of a backward Hindu community does not automatically become a member of a notified backward Muslim community merely by going through the act of conversion to Islam — or, by extension, to any other religion.
The Bench explained that a person's pre-conversion caste or community status cannot, merely by reason of conversion, be transposed into membership of a distinct notified backward class community in the post-conversion social order. Social backwardness that formed the basis of the person's pre-conversion status cannot by itself furnish the legal foundation for conferring membership of a different notified backward class community after conversion.
The court also revisited the constitutional architecture governing Scheduled Caste status. By virtue of paragraph 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, it noted, a person who professes a religion other than Hinduism, Buddhism or Sikhism cannot be deemed a member of a Scheduled Caste.
Consequently, upon conversion to a religion not specified in the order, a person ceases to possess the Scheduled Caste status attached to their antecedent caste and cannot claim affirmative action benefits under Article 16(4) — which permits reservation in public employment for inadequately represented backward classes — where those benefits are predicated on Scheduled Caste membership.
The ruling draws a sharp conceptual line: reservation, the court emphasised, is attached to a constitutionally identified class and not to an individual as a personal entitlement that can be transferred at will.
A caste identity, the Bench said, cannot be treated as an immutable personal attribute irrespective of a change in religious affiliation, and the constitutional benefits of reservation cannot be made to travel from the religion in which the relevant backwardness arose to one whose basic theological structure does not recognise caste as its foundational basis.
The verdict lands in the middle of a politically charged debate. It is a setback for the Tamil Nadu government led by actor-turned-politician Vijay's TVK, which had inherited and defended the previous DMK government's March 2024 order. The BJP was quick to claim vindication, describing the ruling as a "massive blow to Congress' appeasement politics," though the case itself concerned a Tamil Nadu state order rather than any Congress government.
The judgment also arrives against the backdrop of a growing national demand for extending reservation benefits to Dalits and OBCs who have converted to other religions, particularly Christianity and Islam. Dalit Christian and Dalit Muslim organisations have campaigned for years for the removal of the religion bar in the 1950 Presidential Order, arguing that the social stigma and deprivation associated with their caste origins do not vanish upon conversion.
Successive governments have dithered on the question, and a commission headed by former Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan was constituted to examine the issue of extending Scheduled Caste status to converts.
Thursday's ruling does not directly decide that larger question — it concerns Backward Class reservation under Article 16(4) rather than Scheduled Caste status as such — but its reasoning reinforces the existing legal position that conversion severs the link between the individual and the constitutionally recognised class.
Legal scholars note that the judgment clarifies, rather than transforms, the law: courts have long held that reservation benefits flow from membership of a notified class in the present, not from a historical association with one. What the Supreme Court has now done is to state that principle in unmistakable terms for the conversion context, closing the door on state-level attempts to preserve quota benefits across religious boundaries by executive order.
For Tamil Nadu, the immediate consequence is that the March 2024 government order stands quashed. Members of Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, de-notified communities and Scheduled Castes who embraced Islam will not be able to claim reservation as Backward Class Muslims on the strength of their pre-conversion status. Whether the state government seeks a review or pursues a legislative route remains to be seen.
The Madras High Court's June 25 judgment, which the Supreme Court has now upheld, had struck down the state government's decision concerning reservation benefits for seven Backward Class Muslim communities. The High Court had reasoned that the state's attempt to extend the benefits by executive notification could not override the constitutional scheme, under which backwardness must be assessed with reference to the social order to which the claimant presently belongs.
The Supreme Court's endorsement gives that reasoning the imprimatur of the country's highest court.
The ruling is likely to echo well beyond Tamil Nadu. Several states have grappled with similar demands, and the court's articulation — that backwardness in one social order cannot simply be carried into another — will now serve as the controlling precedent for any future challenge.
(Reporting based on The Indian Express, The Hindu and The Times of India.)