Madras High Court has canceled an order of Tamil Nadu government. In fact, the Tamil Nadu government had issued an order on March 9, 2024 that if a person belongs to the Backward Class (BC), Most Backward Class (MBC), DNC or Scheduled Caste (SC) and he embraces the religion of Islam, then he will also continue to get the benefit of reservation in the ‘Backward Class Muslim’ (BCM) category. The High Court canceled this case, calling it unconstitutional.
The court said that a person who embraces Islam merely becomes a Muslim. He cannot be considered a member of any of the 7 special backward Muslim communities already decided by the state. Therefore he cannot get the reservation benefit of that category.
‘He is just a Muslim’
“We hold that a person who embraces Islam cannot seek the status of ‘Backward Class Muslim’. He is just a Muslim and that is all,” the bench said. There are seven communities identified as ‘Backward Class Muslims’ in Tamil Nadu. These include Ansar, Deccani Muslims, Dubekula, Labbai (including Routher and Markyar), Mappila, Sheikh and Syed. These communities were placed in a separate BCM category through a government order issued in July 2008 and have been included in the Tamil Nadu Backward Class, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe lists.
In the government order of 2024, it was directed that people from BC, MBC, DNC and SC communities who convert to Islam will continue to get the benefit of reservation by considering them as BCM. It also permitted the issue of community certificates declaring such people to be members of any one of the seven notified BCM communities, thereby making them eligible for reservation under that category.
However, the High Court said the state’s notion that a person converting to Islam could be issued a certificate of membership in one of those communities was “legally and conceptually wrong”.
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