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Religious Conversion and Backward-Class Reservation
Whether a backward-class reservation survives a change of religion is a long-running question in Indian law, because the disadvantage that earns it is usually rooted in caste. On 15 October 2026 the Supreme Court held that a person who leaves Hinduism for Islam or another non-Hindu faith cannot take that caste-based backwardness along, and it dismissed Tamil Nadu's appeal against the Madras High Court.
Last updated 15 October 20264 min read
Latest update
New card: the Supreme Court's 15 October 2026 ruling that caste-based backwardness does not survive conversion to a non-Hindu faith, and why Tamil Nadu's 2024 BC Muslim order fell.
- religious conversion
- backward classes
- Article 16(4)
- Scheduled Castes Order 1950
- BC Muslims
- Tamil Nadu
- reservation
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