NEW DELHI: The Centre on Thursday set up a three-member Commission of Inquiry headed by former Supreme Court Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan to examine the issue of giving Scheduled Caste status to Dalits who converted to religions other than Sikhism and Buddhism.
The other committee members are retired IAS officer Dr Ravinder Kumar Jain and University Grants Commission member Professor Sushma Yadav. The panel has been given two years to submit its report to the government.
The vexed issue, which has been hanging fire for years, recently figured in the Supreme Court, which sought to know the Union government’s position after a batch of petitions challenged the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order of 1950, which allows only people who follow Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist faiths to be recognised as SCs.
The panel’s mandate also extends to examining changes that Dalits experience once they convert to other religions, especially in terms of their customs, traditions, social and other status, discrimination and deprivation and the implications of these on granting SC status to them. All of the issues will be examined in line with the presidential orders issued from time to time under Article 341 of the Constitution.
Arguing for inclusion, the petitions cited some independent commission reports, which noted that people originally belonging to SC categories continued to experience the same social disabilities even after conversion. In March 1996, the then P V Narasimha Rao government went close to include Dalit Christians as SCs following a welfare ministry recommendation, by bringing a Bill to amend the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order. The bill, however, could not be passed.