Bombay High Court rejects Muslim man’s plea to be declared schedule caste

The man sought to be declared as from the “Bahna”, a scheduled caste category, after his claim was rejected on the ground that he was Muslim by the Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee, Nagpur, on November 24, 1998. He filed the present petition in the High Court in 1999, challenging the order of the scrutiny committee.

Justices Urmila Joshi Phalke and Nivedita P Mehta noted that the law in relation to the 1950 order “so declared continues to bind” the High Court under Article 141 of the Constitution.

While the petition was pending in the High Court, a constitutional challenge was raised before the Supreme Court against the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950. While the challenge remained pending in the apex court, the man sought a transfer of his petition to the Supreme Court. On May 5, the top court, however, rejected the plea, noting that there was no legal necessity for a transfer and his grievance could be “effectively” decided by the High Court, which was directed to take a decision on the man’s plea within four months.

On the other hand, the High Court on July 8, 2022, lifted the stay on an order granting interim protection to the petitioner as far as his employment was concerned. It observed that “if ultimately the petitioner succeeded in the constitutional challenge” in the Supreme Court, “consequential relief could always be granted”.

Appearing for the man before the High Court, advocate Akshaya Sudame argued that connected proceedings were pending before the Supreme Court, requiring an “independent examination” of the issue by the High Court.

Deputy Solicitor General of India Kartik Shukul, along with advocates Gaurav Khatwani and Prutha Hardas, contended that the High Court has always applied the law as declared by the Supreme Court while deciding cases, and allowed the parties to benefit from any judgment that might later be given by the Supreme Court in any pending proceedings.

While calling the submission of the petitioner as “attractive at the first blush”, the bench held it “cannot be accepted”.

“Mere pendency of proceedings does not eclipse the binding effect of an existing declaration of law. Unless an earlier decision is stayed, overruled or otherwise ceases to hold the field, every Court in the country remains bound to apply it. Acceptance of the petitioner’s contention would introduce uncertainty in the administration of justice and would be contrary to the constitutional mandate contained in Article 141,” it added.

Existing law

The man had challenged the law given in paragraph 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950. Paragraph 3 reads, “Notwithstanding anything contained in paragraph 2, no person who professes a religion different from the Hindu, the Sikh or the Buddhist religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.”

While deciding the case of the man, the high court had to follow the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Soosai vs. Union of India, where a Christian person had approached the Supreme Court claiming that the law was discriminating against the Christian members belonging to the castes included in the list of scheduled castes as only the Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists members would get the status of scheduled castes.

The Supreme Court had stated that to belong to the scheduled caste, it must be shown that community suffers from “a comparable depth of social and economic disabilities and cultural and educational backwardness and similar levels of degradation within the Christian community” that requires “intervention” by the government under the law.