NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to consider in July pleas seeking scheduled caste status for Dalit Christians and Muslim converts. The petitions argued that the exclusion of Christian and Muslim Dalits from the list of Scheduled Caste was discriminatory. According to the Constitution (SC) Order, 1950, as of now only Dalits of Hindus, Sikh and Buddhist faith can be categorised as a scheduled caste.
The Centre had earlier decided not to accept Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission’s 2007 report on religious and linguistic minorities. The Centre appointed a new commission, led by ex-judge KG Balakrishnan, to consider the possibility of granting SC status to persons who have historically belonged to SCs but have converted to religions other than Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism.
A bench headed by Justice SK Kaul said that it was important for the court to firstly consider whether empirical data from a 2007 report that has been rejected by the Centre can be relied upon for deciding a constitutional question.
The constitutional issue which the top court had agreed to consider in 2011 was whether the exclusion of the Muslims and Christians from the 1950 order was violative of Articles 14, 15, 16 and 25. Since the court had doubts with regards to the sanctity of the report which was rejected by the Centre, the bench said that it was important to the first debate on the issue with regards to the effect of non-acceptance of the report and relevance of the empirical data in the 2007 report for deciding the constitutional issue.
Also in top court
Maternity Benefit Act plea hearing on Mar 28
The SC has agreed to consider on March 28 a plea challenging the constitutionality of Maternity Benefit Act, according to which states a woman who legally adopts a child below the age of three months would be entitled to maternity leave. It was argued in the plea that the purported 12 weeks of maternity benefit to adoptive mothers is a mere lip service when juxtaposed with the maternity benefit of 26 weeks provided to biological mothers.
Proceedings against SP leader quashed
The SC on Wednesday quashed the proceedings under the National Security Act (NSA) against Uttar Pradesh Samajwadi Party leader Yusuf Malik in a case related to revenue dues, and pulled up the UP
state government for “non-application of mind” and “improper exercise” of jurisdiction.
Centre told to call meet on scavengers
An SC bench on Wednesday asked the Central government to convene a meeting with secretaries of all states and union territories in charge of social justice to discuss aspects to prevent employment of manual scavengers. It has directed the Amicus Curiae and ASG to indicate the possible ‘discussion points’ to the court.