New Delhi: Centre has told the Supreme Court The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 does not suffer from any “unconstitutionality” and the exclusion of Christianity and Islam was due to the reason that the “oppressive system” of untouchability was not prevalent in either of these two religions.
The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, as amended from time to time, says no person professing a religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste (SC).
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The government told the Supreme Court it has not accepted the report of the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission, which had recommended inclusion of Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims in the Scheduled Castes list as it was “flawed”.
The government has highlighted these issues in a reply filed in the apex court to a plea which alleged The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 is discriminatory and violative of Articles 14 (equality before law) and 15 (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste etc) of the Constitution as it discriminates against Scheduled Caste converts to religions other than Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism.
The matter came up for hearing on Wednesday before a bench headed by Justice SK Kaul.
The bench was informed by advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation and others, that the Centre has filed an affidavit saying it wants to appoint another commission to examine the issue.
The Centre recently appointed a commission headed by former Chief Justice of India (CJI) KG Balakrishnan to examine giving SC status to new people who claim to “historically” have belonged to the SCs but have converted to a religion other than those mentioned in the Presidential orders.
Bhushan told the bench, also comprising Justices AS Oka and Vikram Nath, the government has said the new commission will submit its report within two years.
“The first aspect which has to be dealt with is whether this court should stay its hands till report of the commission comes or whether it should proceed on the basis of the material on record,” the bench said.
Solicitor General Tushar Metra, appearing for the Centre, said the government has indeed constituted a commission headed by the former CJI which will submit its report in two years.
The bench has posted the batch of pleas on the issue for hearing in January next year.