Tamil Nadu’s 2024 Government Order extending Backward Class Muslim Status to converts from Hindu communities stays struck down: the Supreme Court has held that backwardness from before conversion cannot found such a claim, and dismissed the State’s appeal against the Madras High Court.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on October 15 dismissed the Tamil Nadu government’s appeal against a Madras High Court judgment that had struck down a 2024 Government Order. That order allowed converts to Islam from Backward, Most Backward, Denotified and Scheduled Caste communities to be treated as Backward Class Muslims. Backwardness suffered in the antecedent social order, the Court held, cannot by itself be carried forward after conversion [The Secretary to Government v. Sameer Ahamed N].
The ruling came from a Bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar, which had reserved its order on August 7, 2026, after hearing Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Siddharth Luthra for the State.
The respondent’s journey
The Government Order is dated March 9, 2024 (G.O. No. 31). The respondent, Sameer Ahamed, formerly Paramasivam, was born to a Hindu couple in Thoothukudi district and converted to Islam in 2015. He applied for a community certificate as a member of the Muslim Lebbai sect, one of seven sects recognised as Backward Class Muslims, but the Tahsildar turned the application down.
The Madras High Court rejected his plea and also declared the 2024 Government Order unconstitutional, observing that a person may convert to Islam but cannot convert to a caste or community within Islam for the purpose of reservation. Tamil Nadu appealed, contending that the order was meant to ensure that members of backward communities did not lose reservation benefits solely because they changed their religion. The respondent’s submissions were not available at the time of writing.
What the Supreme Court held
Someone who moves from the Hindu social order to a non-Hindu one cannot claim affirmative action under Article 16(4) of the Constitution simply on the strength of the backwardness experienced before conversion.
Backwardness suffered in the antecedent social order cannot by itself be carried forward.
The Court drew on paragraph 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, under which a person who professes a religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism cannot be deemed a member of a Scheduled Caste. A convert thus loses Scheduled Caste status and cannot claim Article 16(4) benefits that depend on it. Reconversion to Hinduism, it further held, does not automatically bring back backward-class status; entitlement must be decided on its own terms and not by looking to the earlier status.
ALSO READ: A Convert to Islam Cannot Claim Backward Class Muslim Status: Madras High Court
What the judgment settles, and what it leaves
For Tamil Nadu and for comparable State schemes, the decision settles that an executive order cannot extend backward-class benefits to converts by treating pre-conversion community identity as continuing after a change of religion. It rests on the constitutional position that Scheduled Caste status is tied to the religions named in the 1950 Order, and that backwardness for Article 16(4) has to be shown in the social setting in which the claimant lives.
The ruling answers a question of constitutional law on eligibility for reservation; it does not pass on the sincerity or validity of anyone’s conversion. Whether a convert can independently establish backwardness within the new community, on the evidence, is left to be decided on its own terms. The detailed reasoning will be clearer once the full judgment is studied.
Case Title: The Secretary to Government v. Sameer Ahamed N [appeal against the Madras High Court judgment of June 2026]
Bench: Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar, Supreme Court of India
Date of Judgment: October 15, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Siddharth Luthra for the State of Tamil Nadu (at the hearing on August 7, 2026); counsel for the respondent not available