Supreme Court Rejects Tamil Nadu Appeal on Muslim Quota

The Supreme Court on October 15 dismissed Tamil Nadu’s appeal and upheld a Madras High Court decision striking down a state order that would have allowed certain converts to Islam to claim Backward Class Muslim status based on their former caste category. A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar said that conversion alone does not transfer a person’s caste-related social backwardness into a different social order or establish membership in a Muslim community notified as a Backward Class in Tamil Nadu. The ruling concerns eligibility based solely on a person’s pre-conversion status; it does not say that conversion by itself makes someone eligible for a particular reservation category. The March 9, 2024, government order covered converts from Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, Denotified Communities and Scheduled Castes. It would have allowed them to be treated as Backward Class Muslims and seek community certificates under one of seven notified Muslim communities for reservation purposes. The Madras High Court struck down the order in June, and the state challenged that decision in the Supreme Court.