Caste Determined By Birth Remains Unchanged Despite Conversion Or Inter-Caste Marriage: Allahabad High Court
The Allahabad High Court has observed that the caste of a person assigned at the time of his birth remains the same even if he changes his religion. The Court added that even the marriage of a woman does not change her caste.
A bench of Justice Anil Kumar-X thus DISMISSED a criminal appeal filed by Dinesh and 8 others challenging an order passed by the Special Judge, SC/ST Act, Aligarh, summoning them to face trial for offences under Sections 323, 506, 452 and 354 IPC and Section 3(1)(R) of the SC/ST Act.
Briefly put, the informant filed a criminal complaint against the appellants, alleging that she was assaulted and abused and that the appellants used casteist slurs against her during the altercation. She also alleged that 3 people, including herself, were injured in the incident.
Challenging the summoning order, the appellants moved the HC, wherein they argued that though the informant originally belonged to the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) community by birth and is originally a resident of West Bengal, she lost her caste status after she married a man belonging to the Jat community.
It was contended that a woman, after marrying a person of another caste, loses her original caste which she held since birth and thereafter belongs to the caste of her husband. Therefore, they argued that summoning the appellants for offences under the SC/ST Act is unsustainable.
It was also argued that the informant had falsely implicated them after the appellants lodged a prior FIR against the informant and her family.
The state counsel, however, opposed their plea on the ground that the incident stated in the complaint and the incident narrated in the FIR are simultaneous; both incidents occurred on the same date. Hence, it was submitted that the claim of the appellants that the present complaint was lodged as a counterblast is untenable.
Against this backdrop, the bench noted that the Trial Court had summoned the appellants after considering the statements of the informant and her witnesses, along with the injury reports. It also noted that the existence of a cross-case does not constitute a ground to discard a complaint filed by the opposite party on a rival version.
So far as the contention that the informant has lost her caste after marrying a person belonging to the Jat community is concerned, the Court rejected the same as it noted thus:
"Though a person may change religion, his or her caste remains the same despite conversion to another religion. Hence, marriage does not change a person's caste. Therefore, the said contention is unsustainable."
Consequently, the appeal was dismissed.
Case title - Dinesh And 8 Others vs. State of U.P. and Another 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 73
Case citation: 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 73