Social stigma may continue after conversion: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that social stigma and religious stigma are two different things, and social stigma for an individual may continue even after conversion.

The court said that it cannot shut its eyes to these issues while considering all these constitutional matters connected to providing reservation to Dalits converted to Christianity and Islam.

Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj, representing the Centre, submitted before a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Aravind Kumar that Justice Ranganath Misra Commission report of 2007, which recommended recognising Dalits in Christianity and Islam, had not gone into all aspects of the matter.

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He defended the Centre's decision not to accept the report, saying it did not conduct any field study or made any comparative analysis etc.

Instead, the Centre said, that it had in October 2022 appointed former Chief Justice of India (CJI) K G Balakrishnan to head a commission to examine the claims and the court should wait for its report.

The bench, however, orally observed several commissions of inquiry may examine the matter. "If tomorrow, there is a different political dispensation, they will say that we do not accept that inquiry commission’s report, therefore there is some kind of a colour to this dispute," the court said.

With regard to the Centre’s stand on Justice Ranganath Misra Commission report of 2007, the bench asked Nataraj, “Are you sure, you should probably recheck the report, it is not that perfunctory and it is a too generalised statement”.

The bench said it is flagging the issue, whether it will be in the domain of the court to look into the material of the report, and also whether there can be a writ issued to include in the presidential order any community for reservation.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing one of the petitioners, said the exclusion of the communities in the presidential order is discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Referring to the petitioners claim that a person from the SC community carried a tag, even if they moved to Islam or Christianity, the bench said to say that they wanted to lose their caste identity is not correct, the court has not gone into the heart of the matter as to why they have converted.

Referring to an untouchability act, the bench said, “that means social stigmas are carried across, and religious stigma and social stigma are two different things. One may convert for religion for different purposes but social stigma continues that is why reservation for Scheduled Caste, otherwise today the Constitution does not recognise any untouchability”.

The bench asked why the court cannot test whether under the constitutional provision or constitutional framework, “whether such type of compartmentalization is permissible or not".

It also said the matter is not so simple. For 19 years, the petition seeking reservation for Dalit converts had been kept pending.

Nataraj submitted that the exercise based on empirical data is in progress by the Balakrishnan commission and the court should await its response.

The bench noted that the petitioners have sought to canvas that this will be an unending exercise, as there have been commissions and reports, and they may not see light at the end of the tunnel, if the whole exercise is undertaken again. It also sought to know the effect of the report of the commission of inquiry which has not been accepted by the government.

The bench posted the matter for hearing in July.

In December last year, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, had told the apex court that the Centre did not accept Justice Ranganath Misra Commission report of 2007, as the commission's report was "flawed".