By Sanjay Raman Sinha
The constitutional dilemma at the intersection of affirmative action and the right to freedom of religion resurfaced sharply recently after the Allahabad High Court directed all district magistrates in Uttar Pradesh to identify cases in which individuals who converted from Hinduism to other religions were still using Scheduled Caste (SC) or related caste certificates.
This order—passed in Jitendra Sahani vs State of UP—asked whether a person who has embraced Christianity can legitimately claim benefits tied to their former Hindu caste identity. Justice Praveen Kumar Giri instructed district authorities to report all such cases to the state within four months “so that such fraud on the Constitution may not occur.” The Union cabinet secretary and the UP chief secretary were also asked to review the matter.
Central to the ruling is the High Court’s reaffirmation that caste-based disabilities do not exist within the Christian faith, and therefore SC classification—which is linked to the social oppression associated with Hindu caste hierarchy—gets extinguished upon conversion.
The case concerns a Hindu-born individual who became a Christian priest, but continued to describe himself as Hindu in official affidavits. He also faces an FIR for allegedly denigrating Hindu deities during preaching, triggering a law-and-order concern.
The High Court relied heavily on the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, which specifies that SC status applies only to individuals professing Hinduism, Sikhism, or Buddhism. This exclusion of converts to Christianity and Islam has long been contentious.
The term “fraud on the Constitution”, central to this debate, was articulated earlier in C Selvarani vs Special Secretary (2024), where the Supreme Court held that a person who converts to Christianity ceases to belong to their original caste. Claiming reservation benefits while professing a different faith, the Court observed, violates the constitutional ethos.
The legal argument traces its roots to multiple precedents:
In S Rajagopal vs CM Armugam (1969), the Supreme Court acknowledged that caste-linked backwardness could persist after conversion, but required proof.
In Kailash Sonkar vs Maya Devi (1984), the Supreme Court formulated the Doctrine of Eclipse, holding that caste identity is suspended post-conversion and revived only upon genuine reconversion accepted by the caste community.
The Selvarani ruling synthesizes these principles, and the High Court’s recent order derives strength from this consolidated jurisprudence.
THE BALAKRISHNAN COMMITTEE FACTOR
In 2022, the Union government appointed a three-member high-level commission led by former CJI KG Balakrishnan to examine whether SC status should be extended to Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam. While speaking to India Legal, Justice Balakrishnan said: “The report will come within three-four months. We are taking the viewpoints of all the people, and the ground reports. We are considering all facets of the issue. We have visited four-five states. We will be visiting Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu shortly. Rest is finished. We are reviewing the 1950 order. That is what the Union government wants. The issue is based on untouchability. There are elements of this untouchability in other Muslim communities. That is what they say. We have to consider it.”
The government, however, opposes extending SC status to converts, arguing:
Untouchability does not formally exist in Christianity and Islam.
These faiths have “foreign origins”.
Extending reservation would “dilute” existing benefits and disadvantage those still directly impacted by untouchability.
This stance contrasts sharply with the 2007 Ranganath Misra Commission, which recommended de-linking SC status from religion altogether—a report the current government has rejected as flawed.
A CONSTITUTIONAL COLLISION
The debate ultimately pits two powerful constitutional commitments against each other:
Equality and Non-Discrimination (Articles 14 and 15), versus Reservation for SCs (Articles 341 and 16(4)).
Proponents of extending SC status argue that the 1950 religious bar itself is discriminatory, noting that caste-linked social exclusion continues even after conversion. The High Court ruling, however, asserts that misuse of caste certificates represents a manipulation of the reservation framework.
With the challenge to the 1950 Order pending before the Supreme Court and the Balakrishnan Committee’s report due soon, the political temperature is set to rise—especially in states with significant Dalit Christian or Dalit Muslim populations such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
How the government navigates the issue will shape both policy and politics for years to come.
The post Conversion, Caste and the Constitution appeared first on India Legal.