{"id":321524,"date":"2024-12-17T21:30:56","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=321524"},"modified":"2024-12-28T21:34:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T16:04:14","slug":"religion-and-reservations-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/religion-and-reservations-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion and Reservations in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source: <\/strong>This article on <strong>Religion and Reservations in India <\/strong>is based on article<strong> \u201c How Supreme Court, govt have attempted to define importance of religion in SC &amp; OBC reservations\u201d <\/strong>published in <strong>The Indian Express<\/strong> on<strong> 17<sup>th<\/sup> December 2024. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>UPSC Syllabus Topic: <\/strong>GS-2- Indian Constitution\u2014Historical Underpinnings, Evolution, Features, Amendments, Significant Provisions and Basic Structure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Context: <\/strong>The article addresses the complex and contentious issue of <strong>religion and reservations<\/strong> in India, focusing on <strong>Other Backward Classes (OBC)<\/strong> and <strong>Scheduled Caste (SC)<\/strong> quotas. It examines the evolving legal and governmental positions on whether religion can be a basis for providing reservation benefits and highlights specific Supreme Court and High Court rulings that have shaped the debate.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Can reservations be based on religion, especially for Other Backward Classes (OBC)?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>While the Constitution (Article 16(4)) allows states to provide reservations for \u201cbackward classes\u201d underrepresented in public services, the Supreme Court in<strong> <em>Indra Sawhney v Union of India<\/em> (1992) <\/strong>ruled that religion cannot be the <em>sole<\/em> basis for determining backwardness.<\/li>\n<li>The court emphasized that other <strong>social, economic, or educational criteria must also justify reservations.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Several states have provided OBC reservations to Muslims. For example:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Kerala<\/strong>: Muslims have been part of OBC quotas since 1956.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Karnataka<\/strong>: In 1995, based on the Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy Commission\u2019s 1990 report, Muslims \u201cas a whole\u201d were deemed socially and economically backward.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tamil Nadu<\/strong>: Included Muslim groups in the OBC quota in 2007.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>However, challenges persist. For instance, on <strong>May 22, 2024<\/strong>, the Calcutta High Court struck down OBC reservations for 77 classes\u2014mostly from the Muslim community\u2014stating that the reservations were based on religion without \u201cobjective criteria\u201d to prove backwardness.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2><strong>How does religion impact Scheduled Caste (SC) reservations?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>The Constitution (Article 341) allows the President to specify SC communities. The <strong>Scheduled Castes Order, 1950<\/strong> restricts SC status to Hindus, later extended to Sikhs (1956) and Buddhists (1990). Converts to Christianity and Islam remain excluded.<\/li>\n<li>In the <em>Soosai v Union of India<\/em> (1985) case, the Supreme Court ruled that a religious convert cannot retain SC status unless they prove caste-related discrimination persists in their new religious community.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Ranganath Mishra Commission (2007)<\/strong> found caste discrimination exists across all religions and recommended that SC status should extend to converts to Christianity and Islam. However, the Centre rejected this recommendation.<\/li>\n<li>A key challenge is pending in the <strong>Ghazi Saaduddin v State of Maharashtra<\/strong> case (since 2004), which questions the constitutional validity of the 1950 Presidential Order. In April 2024, the Supreme Court delayed the case, citing the Centre&#8217;s formation of a commission led by ex-CJI K G Balakrishnan to examine the issue. The commission\u2019s report is now expected by <strong>October 2025<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2><strong>What are the legal hurdles regarding reservations for religious groups?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Legal challenges arise when reservations for religious groups are provided without clear justification:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Andhra Pradesh (2005)<\/strong>: The state introduced 5% reservations for Muslims within the OBC quota. The Andhra Pradesh High Court struck it down, stating the government did not use \u201cobjective criteria\u201d to prove backwardness.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Calcutta High Court (2024)<\/strong>: Similar reasoning invalidated reservations for 77 predominantly Muslim classes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Supreme Court is yet to decide on the Andhra Pradesh case, despite indicating it would address it after the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) judgment in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: This article on Religion and Reservations in India is based on article \u201c How Supreme Court, govt have attempted to define importance of religion in SC &amp; OBC reservations\u201d published in The Indian Express on 17th December 2024. UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS-2- Indian Constitution\u2014Historical Underpinnings, Evolution, Features, Amendments, Significant Provisions and Basic Structure. Context:&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/religion-and-reservations-in-india\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Religion and Reservations in India<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230],"tags":[212,10500,225],"class_list":["post-321524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-indian-express","tag-polity","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}