A two-Judge bench of the Supreme Court held as follows,
From Para 61(a), (c), (e) and (f),
a) A person who converts from a Hindu social order to a non-Hindu social order cannot claim affirmative action under Article 16(4) of the Constitution merely on the basis of the social backwardness associated with his pre-conversion status; the backwardness suffered in the antecedent social order cannot, by itself, be carried forward so as to confer upon him the status of a backward class in the religion to which he has converted.
c) Conversion to a non-Hindu social order does not, by itself, confer membership of any particular notified Backward Class community. A person’s pre-conversion caste or community status cannot, merely by reason of conversion, be transposed into membership of a distinct notified Backward Class community in the post-conversion social order. The social backwardness which formed the basis of the person’s pre-conversion status cannot, by itself, furnish the legal foundation for conferring upon him membership of a different notified Backward Class community after conversion.
e) No statutory benefit, protection, reservation or other entitlement under Article 16(4) of the Constitution, the enjoyment of which is predicated upon a particular Hindu social order, can be claimed or extended merely on the basis of such antecedent membership after the person has converted to Islam, Christianity or any other non-Hindu social order. Such conversion severs the legal foundation of an entitlement which is specifically conditioned upon membership of that Hindu social order.
f) A community certificate is declaratory of, and does not create or confer, the status which it purports to recognise. Neither the issuance of a community certificate nor an executive instruction can enlarge, modify or dispense with the substantive constitutional and statutory conditions governing membership of the class or entitlement to the benefits attached thereto.
From Para 54,
Reservation is attached to a constitutionally identified class and not to an individual as a transferable personal entitlement. The constitutional enquiry is directed to the class, its common characteristics and the disadvantage which binds its members together…
From Paras 62 and 63 (Conclusion),
62. We therefore affirm the central conclusion of the High Court, though our reasoning proceeds on the constitutional foundations set out above. A person who converts to Islam does not, by that act alone, become a member of any one of the seven notified Backward Class Muslim communities in the State. His former caste or community status cannot automatically be transposed into the Muslim Backward Class category, nor can a private religious body conclusively determine such statutory entitlement.
63. Tested on that standard, we are of the view that the impugned G.O. cannot be sustained and has rightly been quashed by the High Court. It creates an artificial route by which a person moves from a pre-conversion backward social order into a notified Muslim backward class without establishing the necessary social and legal link.
The Special Leave Petition against the Madras High Court’s quashing of G.O.(Ms) No. 31 dated 09.03.2024 was dismissed (Para 64).
Citations: 2026 INSC 1129; SLP (C) No. 25507/2026 (Diary No. 39624/2026).
Other Sources:
The Judgment of Madras High Court bench at Madurai is here.
The GO issued that got struck down as unconstitutional in this context is here.
