The Supreme Court will study the constitutional validity of the Ranganath Misra Commission recommendation for inclusion of dalit Christians and Muslims in the scheduled caste list to make them eligible for quota in education and jobs under the constitutional scheme.
?We want to examine whether the recommendation is valid under the constitutional scheme. A proper study has to be made,? an SC bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar said on Tuesday.
Reacting to the apex court’s decision, Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam said any amendment to identification of castes and the basis of the Presidential Order of 1950 providing for reservation to dalits among Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists has to be left to Parliament alone.
Petitioner Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), which had filed the petition in 2004 in the apex court, argued through advocate Prashant Bhushan that the SC list should be prepared on the basis of the socio-economic conditions of persons and not on account of their religion.
?How is it that a dalit Hindu, Sikh or a Buddhist is eligible for reservation but not a dalit Christian or Muslim? Is this not discrimination on the basis of religion which is prohibited under the Constitution ?? wondered Bhushan.
He said the Presidential Order of 1950 had originally envisaged reservation for dalit Hindus. Later, in 1959 it included dalits from the Sikh community and for Buddhists in 1990.
?It is a bit of politically sensitive case and the government despite the recommendation from Justice Misra Commission, which was agreed to by National Commission for Scheduled Caste (NCSC), had not acted on it,? the government counsels argued.
The SC, however, said: ?We have to examine this very important issue. We are not worried about the political sensitivity involved in it. We want to examine whether the recommendations were constitutionally valid or not.?
The National Commission on Religious and Linguistic Minority headed by former CJI Misra had recommended that dalits continued to face discrimination even after converting to Christianity and Islam and hence deserved benefit of social affirmative action.
The NCSC, however, said that though it had no objection to reservations being granted to dalits who converted to other religions, the Centre should ensure that it did not carve out quota for them from the existing 15 per cent for SCs.
In its recommendation to the Centre, NCSC had on Sep 18, 2007 said: ?It was decided that quota should be extended to them but the share of 15 per cent of SCs should not be disturbed and the element of reservation for these communities (dalit Christians and dalit Muslims) should be determined by the government keeping in view their population.”
It also reminded the government about the SCmandated 50 per cent cap on total reservation.