Big decision of Supreme Court: Only Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists can get Scheduled Caste status.

In an important decision, the Supreme Court has clarified that only people following Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist religions are eligible to get Scheduled Caste (SC) status. The court said that if a person converts to any other religion, he loses the Scheduled Caste status and cannot benefit from protection under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act.

This decision was given by Justice P.K. Mishra and N. V. Anjaria, while upholding an earlier judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which held that a person who embraces Christianity and actively practices it cannot be recognized as a member of the Scheduled Caste community.

Actually, the case was related to a priest Chinthada Anand, who had alleged that he was discriminated against and assaulted on the basis of caste. He had registered a case in this regard under the SC/ST Act. However, the accused argued that since Anand has converted to Christianity and is actively working as a priest, he cannot avail the legal protection available under the SC category.

Andhra Pradesh High Court had already quashed the FIR saying that a person cannot retain SC status after religious conversion. The High Court had also clarified that despite having an SC certificate, if a person converts to a religion where the caste system is not valid, his SC status automatically gets lost. In its judgment, the Supreme Court said, “No person professing any religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism can be a member of a Scheduled Caste. On conversion to any other religion, Scheduled Caste status ceases.”

The court also noted that the petitioner neither claimed to have returned to his original religion nor proved that he was accepted back into his original community. As per records, he had been following Christianity for more than a decade and was regularly holding prayer meetings.

The Supreme Court said that even at the time of the incident, the petitioner was working as a priest, which makes it clear that he was following Christianity. In such a situation, the claim of SC status and the legal protection associated with it cannot be accepted.

This judgment reiterates that Scheduled Caste status is linked to religious identity and conversion is a decisive factor affecting eligibility.

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