Rules of Religion in Eligibility for the SC Quota

Rules of Religion in Eligibility for the SC Quota

Subject – Polity

Context – Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik has alleged that Sameer Wankhede, Mumbai Zonal Director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), who is in charge of the case against Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan, benefitted from the reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs) despite being Muslim and ineligible for the quota

Concept –

• There is a 15 per cent quota for SCs in government jobs. But Hindu SCs who convert to Islam lose their SC status, and are no longer eligible for the quota.
• A brochure on the DoPT site lays down the position on SC status and conversions:
  • “No person who professes a religion different from the Hindu or the Sikh religion shall be deemed to be a member of the Scheduled Castes…”
  • “A person belonging to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe will continue to be deemed as such irrespective of his/her marriage to a non-Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe.”
  • “A convert or re-convert to Hinduism and Sikhism shall be accepted as a member of Scheduled Caste if he has been received back and accepted as a member of the concerned Scheduled Caste.”
• The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, which lays down that no person professing a religion different from the Hindu or Sikh or Buddhist religion can be deemed to be a member of an SC, has been amended several times.
  • The original order under which only Hindus were classified as SCs, was amended to include Sikhs in 1956, and Buddhists in 1990.
• No such religion-based bar, however, operates for STs and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
  • The brochure on the DoPT site says, “The rights of a person belonging to a Scheduled Tribe are independent of his/her religious faith.”
• Petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking the inclusion of Muslims and Christians in the SC category.

In inter-caste marriages, can mother’s caste be the caste of the couple’s child?

• The child carries the caste of the father, and caste certificates are issued on this basis. However, courts have taken note of the surroundings in which the child was brought up.
• In RameshbhaiDabhaiNaika vs State of Gujarat &Ors (2012), the Supreme Court ruled: “In an inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal there may be a presumption that the child has the caste of the father.
  • This presumption may be stronger in the case where in the inter-caste marriage or a marriage between a tribal and a non-tribal the husband belongs to a forward caste.
  • But by no means the presumption is conclusive or irrebuttable and it is open to the child of such marriage to lead evidence to show that he/she was brought up by the mother who belonged to the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe.”