U Madras High Court On Friday, he struck down an order of the Tamil Nadu government 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, declared that the government order issued by the then DMK government on March 9, 2024, was unconstitutional. The court said the executive could not overrule judicial precedents established through a government order.“We hold that a convert to Islam cannot claim the status of a Backward Class Muslim. He is just a Muslim and that is all there is to it,” the bench said.The court noted that Tamil Nadu recognizes seven communities under the BCM category. He said that these communities are recognized from birth and a person who converts to Islam cannot claim to belong to any of them.The judges stated 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 untenable.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 that Islam teaches equality and does not recognize social hierarchy. However, he noted that over time, Muslim society also came to have different communities based on birth, similar to castes in Hinduism.
