Woman adopted Hindu religion to avail reservation benefits; Supreme Court strongly reprimanded

If a person changes religion only to get reservation benefits. So this would be against the social spirit of the reservation policy. The Supreme Court, while upholding the order of the Madras High Court, refused to grant Scheduled Caste (SC) certificate to a woman. The woman had claimed that she had joined the Scheduled Caste by converting to Hinduism and wanted a high-ranking clerical job in Puducherry.

The case was heard by a bench of Justices R Mahadevan and Pankaj Mithal, “It is clear from the evidence presented in this case that the appellant follows Christianity and goes to church regularly.” Despite this, she calls herself a Hindu and demands a Scheduled Caste certificate to get a job. Her double claim is unacceptable and she cannot consider herself a Hindu after getting baptized.

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The court further said, “Granting the social status of Scheduled Caste to a Christian follower just for the benefit of reservation would be against the basic spirit of the Constitution and would be considered as fraud.”

The Court ruled that India is a secular country, hence “if the purpose of religious conversion is to obtain the benefits of reservation and not faith in some other religion, it cannot be accepted because giving the benefits of reservation to such persons would be contrary to social policy.” It would be against the spirit of “.

In this case, the appellant C. Selvarani challenged the order of the Madras High Court on January 24, 2023, which was rejected. He claimed that the woman follows Hindu religion and belongs to the Valluvan caste, which is a Scheduled Caste, and is entitled to avail the benefits of reservation under the Dravidian quota.

The court ruled that Selvarani was a born Christian and after examining her documents and evidence, she should have publicly announced her conversion. The Court also rejected the Appellant's claim that she was baptized when she was less than three months old as this claim was untrue.

The Supreme Court said that the family should have taken some concrete steps if they really wanted to convert to Hinduism. The court also said that evidence of baptism, marriage and regular church attendance showed that she still practiced Christianity.

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