The Tamil Nadu government has moved the Supreme Court against a Madras High Court order stating that a person converting to Islam is not entitled to claim reservation under the Backward Class (Muslim) category solely on the basis of conversion.
The appeal has been filed by the secretary to the state government against the high court's decision, which declared unconstitutional a Government Order (GO) issued on March 9, 2024.
The impugned GO had permitted persons belonging to Backward Classes (BC), Most Backward Classes (MBC), Denotified Communities (DNC), or Scheduled Castes (SC) who subsequently converted to Islam to be treated as BC (Muslim) and obtain community certificates under one of the seven notified Muslim communities for the purpose of availing reservation benefits.
A division bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and PB Balaji struck down the GO and held that it was contrary to binding judicial precedents of both the Supreme Court and the Madras High Court.
The high court had observed that a person converting to Islam could only be treated as a Muslim and could not, by virtue of conversion alone, be classified as belonging to any specific notified Backward Class Muslim community for reservation purposes.
The judgment arose from a petition filed by Sameer Ahamed, who converted from Hinduism to Islam in 2015, with the conversion being notified through a Gazette notification in 2016.
He subsequently married according to Islamic rites and sought a certificate identifying him as belonging to the "Muslim Lebbai" community to avail reservation benefits.
His application was rejected by the tahsildar, prompting him to move the high court.
(With inputs from PTI)