‘He is only a Muslim and that’s all’: Madras High Court strikes down Tamil Nadu order allowing convert to retain reservation under BCM category

The Madras High Court on Friday, struck down a Tamil Nadu government order that allowed people from Backward Classes (BC), Most Backward Classes (MBC), Denotified Communities (DNC) and Scheduled Castes (SC) who converted to Islam to continue receiving reservation benefits under the Backward Class Muslim (BCM) category.A division bench of Justices GR Swaminathan and PB Balaji, in its order, held that the government order issued by the then DMK government on March 9, 2024, was unconstitutional. The court said the executive could not override settled judicial precedents through a government order.“We hold that a convert to Islam cannot claim the status of Backward Class Muslim. He is only a Muslim and that’s all there is to it,” the bench said.The court noted that Tamil Nadu recognises seven communities under the BCM category. It said these communities are recognised by birth and a person who converts to Islam cannot claim to belong to any of them.The judges held that the 2024 government order wrongly assumed that a convert could be issued a community certificate showing membership of one of these seven communities. The court called this assumption legally and conceptually unsustainable.Referring to a 1951 Madras High Court judgment, the bench said that when a Hindu converts to Islam, the person becomes a Muslim and not a member of a specific Muslim community such as Labbai, Rowther, Marakkayar or Syed.The bench said Islam teaches equality and does not recognise social hierarchy. However, it noted that, over time, Muslim society has also come to have different birth-based communities, similar to castes in Hinduism.