Supreme Court News | No Automatic Backward Quota Benefits For Converts, Rules Supreme Court

In a big ruling on the issue of reservation, the Supreme Court on Thursday held that a person converting to Islam was not entitled to backward class reservation based on their pre-conversion status. A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar ruled that social backwardness of a person can't be transferred from the Hindu social order to a non-Hindu social order after he converts to another religion. The Supreme Court dismissed Tamil Nadu government's plea against the Madras High Court order, which held that a person converting to Islam can't claim reservation under Backward Class (Muslim) category solely on the basis of conversion. "Conversion to a non-Hindu social order does not, by itself, confer membership of any particular backward caste community. A person's pre-conversion caste or community status cannot, merely by reason of conversion, be transposed into a notified backward class community in the post-conversion social order," the court said.