An affidavit filed by the Union govern-ment with the Supreme Court claims Islam and Christianity’s allegedly “foreign” contri-butions as justification for keeping Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians out of the Scheduled Castes list, The Hindu has report-ed. The report notes that the affidavit “contra-dicts itself at several junctures,” and that there is “a lack of clarity on its arguments defending the current criteria” for determi-ning which communities can be included in the Scheduled Castes list.
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empo-werment filed the affidavit in October, in a case arising from a petition filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, alleging that the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 is violative of Articles 14 and 15 of the constitution as it discriminates against members of Scheduled Caste communities who have converted to religions other than Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism.
“It is submitted that the present is a case of classification between Indian citizens and foreigners which cannot be doubted on any count. It is well established that Article 14 forbids class legislation but does not forbid classification,” the government has claimed.
“It is submitted that there exists a clear intelligible differentia between local contri-butions to the sector and foreign contribu-tions,” it added.
The Hindu report notes that, of course, the case does not concern foreigners but Indian citizens.
The Union government thus makes a case to distinguish between Scheduled Caste communities practising Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism and Scheduled Caste commu-nities practising other religions.
The Union government further submitted that a “twin test of classification” – purported-ly laid down by a “bench of higher combina-tions than Shayara Bano Supra – states that Article 14 forbids class legislation but does not forbid classification.
“It is submitted that it postulates that permissible classification must be founded on an intelligible differentia which distingui-shes persons or things that are grouped to-gether from others left out of the group, and the differentia must have a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the statute in question,” the Union govt. says.