Marginalized Community

A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a declaration that 'religion' should not be used as a criterion to grant Scheduled Caste status. On July 3, a bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul ordered that the petition filed by Tamil Activist Kundanthai Arasan to be tagged along with the pending petition seeking SC reservations for Christian and Muslim Dalit converts. The petitioner challenged and sought to declare paragraph (3) of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 issued in exercise of Article 341(1) of the Constitution of India as unconstitutional and void. The petition seeks to "delink religion for the consideration of Scheduled Castes status and make Scheduled Castes status as religion neutral concerning Christians and Muslims of Scheduled Castes Origin people for extending them the Scheduled Castes status".