The Supreme Court.
| Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap
The Supreme Court on Friday (August 7, 2026) agreed to pronounce judgment on a Tamil Nadu government appeal seeking confirmation of the State’s power to frame and implement policy to provide reservation benefits to members of backward classes, most backward classes, denotified communities and Scheduled Castes who convert to Islam.A Bench headed by Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra reserved orders on the State government’s stand that it has the authority, based on the Tamil Nadu Backward Classes Commission, to issue “backward classes (Muslim) community certificates to eligible persons who had embraced Islam among the backward classes, most backward classes, denotified communities and Scheduled Castes”.The State, represented by senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Siddharth Luthra, said the object behind its government order of March 9, 2024 was to ensure that “persons belonging to socially and educationally backward communities are not deprived of reservation benefits solely on account of conversion to Islam and thereby create a level playing field by preserving affirmative action benefits despite change of religion”.The State appeal was directed against a Madras High Court decision quashing the March 2024 order as unconstitutional.The High Court judgment of June 25 had held that “a person who embraces Islam cannot claim the status of backward class(Muslim)”.Justice Mishra orally observed that a 1951 judgment of the Madras High Court in G. Michael versus S. Venkateswaran, regarding a Scheduled Caste member who converted to Christianity and wanted to contest in a reserved seat, had held the fort for 75 years by upholding the constitutional validity of Paragraph 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950.Paragraph 3 stipulated that no person who professed a religion different from Hinduism (later amended to include Sikhism and Buddhism) should be deemed to get the benefits of a Scheduled Caste member.The State however contended that the 1951 judgment did not disable the State from classifying a convert who was previously socially and educationally backward as a backward Muslim under Articles 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution.It said the March 24 order applied to the “wholly distinct category of backward class notification, which contains no religion-based exclusion”.The court was hearing the petition filed by a man from Thoothukudi district who had embraced Islam and changed his name. He was born to Hindu parents. The certificate issued by the Sunnath Jamath, Kayathar, in 2015 had stated the petitioner had embraced Islam.He had applied for a community certificate certifying him as ‘Muslim Lebbai’, a faith he claimed to follow. However, the Kayathar Tahsildar rejected his application. Challenging it, he had moved court.Meanwhile, the 2024 government order was notified, working in his favour.But the High Court had held that a Hindu, on conversion to Islam, did not carry forward the benefits of the Hindu caste or sub-caste. The convert’s status in Islam was not decided by the caste he was part of prior to the conversion.The High Court had noted that Christian missionaries as well as Islamic preachers maintained that their religions offered social equality unlike Hinduism, which had a caste hierarchy.“Having taken such a stand for effecting conversions, it is disingenuous to claim that there is hierarchy in Islam also. In our respectful view, categorising certain sects as Backward and the remaining as Forward is antithetical to Quranic injunctions. Islam seeks to establish an egalitarian society. Everyone is equal in the eye of God. There is no social hierarchy,” the High Court had reasoned. Published - August 07, 2026 01:38 pm IST
