NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu govt has moved Supreme Court challenging a Madras HC order that quashed the state’s decision to allow individuals from reserved categories who embraced Islam to continue getting benefits under the Backward Class Muslim category.The state had passed an order in March 2024 to the effect that a convert to Islam from Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, Denotified Communities or Scheduled Castes may be treated as BC (Muslim) for availing reservation benefits.However, the Madurai bench of Madras HC declared the Tamil Nadu govt order unconstitutional. It dismissed the plea of a man who had embraced Islam and sought a certificate identifying him as a member of the Muslim Lebbai community to get reservation benefits.The state has notified seven Muslim communities, including Muslim Lebbai, as Backward Class Muslims.The HC relied on various judgments of the apex court and Madras HC, including in the G Michael vs S Venkateswaran case. It said, “When a Hindu gets converted to Isl-am, he becomes just a Mussalman and his place in Muslim society is not determined by the caste to which he belonged before his conversion. It was further held that… he ceases to be a member of any caste.”The HC further said, “The Christian missionaries as well as Islamic preachers harangued through decades and centuries that their religions offer social equality unlike Hinduism, which has caste as its inherent feature. Having taken such a stand for effecting conversions, it is disingenuous to claim that there is hierarchy in Islam also. In our respectful view, categorising certain sects as backward and the remaining as forward is antithetical to Quranic injunctions. Islam seeks to establish an egalitarian society.”“When the division bench of the Madras HC in G Michael had held that a convert to Islam becomes just a Mussalman, it is not open to the state govt to issue an order undermining the said decision. That is exactly what govt has done by recognising that there can be conversion to any one of the seven sects of Muslims identified as Backward Class Muslim,” it held.
